What About It? Part 3

3 Chief Editors

Nathalie Frankowski Cruz Garcia Co-Editor

Ronald Frankowski Graphic and Content Design

Nathalie Frankowski Cruz Garcia

What About It? is intellectual property of Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia WAI Architecture Think Tank First Published 2014 by WAI Architecture Think Tank Publishers ISBN 978-2-9544145-0-8 www.waithinktank.com contact@wai-architecture.com Printed in China Limited Edition Copy /

Underground

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What remained particularly memorable of that fierce scuffle were the three blows, in the form of three vociferous statements from out manifesto.

1. Destroy the all-canons freezer which turns inspiration to ice.

2. Destroy the old language, powerless to keep up with life’s leaps and bounds.

3. Throw the old masters overboard from the ship of modernity.

As you see, there isn’t a single building here, not a single comfortably designed corner, only destruction, anarchy. This made philistines laugh, as if it were the extravagant idea of some insane individuals, but it fact it turned out to be ‘a devilish intuition’ which is realized in the stormy today.

—Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Drop of Tar, 1915

CONTENTS

Glossary Underground 1 Collapse 9 Vision 17 Narrative 33

Essays and Manifestoes

Ideal 37

Manifesto of the Third Waizine 4

Suprematist 49

A Map to Utopia

Alternative 59

Narrative Architecture: 34 A Manifesto

Painting 67 Universal 99

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Projects and Narrative Architectures Palace of Failed Optimism

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Blindness 18 New NCCA, Moscow

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Suprematist Landscapes: Totems without Qualities

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Housetelier, Beijing 60

Interviews Painting a Philosophy of Emptiness 68 Interview with Meng Zhigang The Architecture of 76 Curating Interview with Elias Redstone The Possibility of 80 Sitelessness Interview with Francois Blanciak Engineering Pure Form Interview with Charles Pope

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Manifesto of the Third WAIzine Six Years have passed since WAI was created.

Many manifestoes have been written and projects elaborated.

Many theories have been tested, and many questions have been asked.

“What About It” is not just a question, it’s an attitude.

It is a philosophy that starts by questioning.

The Idea of WAI is to question the world around us.

To challenge the status quo.

The WAIzine manifests in the material world and in the virtual domain.

It presents the materialization of an ethos, a practicing philosophy, an executing theory.

The WAIzine doesn’t have deadlines, or release dates.

It exists, like pamphlets and journals of artists have existed for more than a century.

The WAIzine is both text and action.

It represents architecture in theory and practice.

It presents architecture as theory and practice.

The WAIzine offers a platform to manifest the inextinguishable fire of curiosity.

It exists independent to external forces, the economy and the market.

The WAIzine is a purely speculative project against socio-economic speculation. v

A Map to Utopia 1 Rem Koolhaas Utopia Station 2 Michel Foucault Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias 3 Frederic Jameson Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions 4 Walter Benjamin Paris: Nineteenth Century Capital 5 Karl Marx Capital: A Critique of Political Economy 6 Michel Houellebecq The Map and The Territory 7 Quevedo 8 Max Horkheimer 9 Emilia Kabakov

Utopia is a state not an artist’s colony. 1 Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.2 Utopia is thus by definition an amateur activity in which personal opinions take the place of mechanical contraptions and the mind takes its satisfaction in the sheer operations of putting together new models of this or that perfect society.3 Yet with Baudelaire, in the ‘death-loving idyll’ of the city, there is decidedly a social, and modern, sub-stratum. The modern is a main stress in his poetry. As spleen he shatters the ideal (Splee et Ideal). But it is precisely the modern which always conjures up prehistory. That happens here through the ambiguity which is peculiar to the social relations and events of this epoch. Ambiguity is the figurative appearance of the dialectic, the law of the dialectic at a standstill. This standstill is Utopia, and the dialectical image therefore a dream-image. The commodity clearly provides such an image: as fetish. The arcades, which are both house and stars, provide such an image. And such an image is provided by the whore, who is seller and commodity in one. 4

conditions is concerned, the commodity has not become any cheaper, the new machine signifies no improvement. The capitalist is therefore not interested in the introduction of this new machine. And since its introduction would make his present and not yet worn-out machinery simply worthless, would make old iron of it, would mean a positive loss for him, he takes good care not to commit such a utopian mistake.5 What can undoubtedly be said is that the model of society proposed by William Morris certainly would not be utopian in a world where all men were like William Morris. 6 He called it “Utopia,” a Greek word which means “there is no such place.”7 Utopia leaps beyond time..., using means whose existence was determined from the beginning within a given reality, it desires to achieve a perfect society: paradise, a fantasy dependent on its time.8 Utopia was not built for those who exist. It was built for those who come later. In order to create the new man it was necessary to destroy the old. 9

Utopia has two fields of possible realization. 1.

Existing power, whatever it is, assimilates the means, the criticisms, and the project of utopia, therefore, in a certain measure, its goals, by rejecting them. But, if there had not been So far as a society producing under capitalist a fundamental modification of the existing [5]

10 Jean Baudrillard Dialectical Utopia 11 Theodor W. Adorno 12 Ernst Bloch 13 Thomas More, Utopia 14 Arthur Schopenhauer 15 Emmanuel Levinas The Other, Utopia, and Justice 16 Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man under Socialism 17 Slavoj Zizek The Liberal Utopia: The Market Mechanisms for the Race of Devils

order, a share of utopia nevertheless passed into reactionary praxis. 2. The revolution that destroyed the topos theoretically permitted a total realization of utopia, which becomes a (revolutionary) topos. In advance, one cannot determine what will constitute the revolutionary praxis of this topos and what will remain theoretical and reintegrated in theory. The realized utopia is a new topos, which will provoke a new critique, then a new utopia. The installation of utopia passes through a (total) urbanism.

And that is the complete process.

Topos(conservative) —critique/utopia/revolution— urbanism / topos (revolutionary and conservative)/new utopia…etc. We call that Dialectical Utopia. Utopia is the phase of theoretical construction, but it is absolutely indissociable from the other planes and can only exist as part of dialectical utopia. It is only through dialectical utopia that we can elaborate, outside and within the present system, an urban thought.10

the problem would be a despotism of the wise and the noble, of the true aristocracy and the genuine nobility, brought about by the method of generation—that is, by the marriage of the noblest men with the cleverest and most intellectual women. This is my Utopia, my Republic of Plato. 14 The entire life of a nation—beyond the formal sum of individuals standing for themselves, that is to say, living and struggling for their land, their place, their Da-sein—carries within itself (concealed, revealed, or at least occasionally caught sight of) men who, before all loans, have debts, owe something to the neighbour, are responsible—chosen and unique—and in this responsibility want peace, justice, reason.

Utopia!15 A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.16

Above and beyond this one could perhaps say in general that the fulfillment of utopia con- One of the “proofs” of my practice of fetishsists largely only in a repetition of the continu- ist disavowal is the alleged “perverse paradox” of me rejecting utopias and then nonetheless ally same “today.”11 claiming that today “it is more important than But I believe that we live not very far from the ever to hold this utopian place of the global topos of utopia, as far the contents are con- alternative open” - as if I did not repeatedly cerned, and less far from utopia. At the very elaborate different meanings of utopia: utopia beginning Thomas More designated utopia as a as simple imaginary impossibility (the utopia place, an island in the distant South Seas. This of a perfected harmonious social order withdesignation underwent changes later so that it out antagonisms, the consumerist utopia of left space and entered time. Indeed, the utopi- today’s capitalism), and utopia in the more radans, especially those of the eighteenth and nine- ical sense of enacting what, within the frameteenth centuries, transposed the wishland more work of the existing social relations, appears as into the future. In other words, there is a trans- “impossible” - this second utopia is “a-topic” formation of the topos from space into time. 12 only with regard to these relations. Utopia as simple imaginary impossibility (the utopia of In fact, when I think of the fair and sensible ar- a perfected harmonious social order without rangements in Utopia, where things are run so antagonisms, the consumerist utopia of today’s efficiently with so few laws, and recognition for capitalism), is not utopia in the more radical individual merit is combined with equal pros- sense of enacting what, within the framework perity for all—when I compare Utopia with a of the existing social relations, appears as “imgreat many capitalist countries which are al- possible” - this second utopia is “a-topic” only ways making new regulations, but could never with regard to these relations.17 be called well-regulated, where dozens of laws are passed every day, and yet there are still not We must therefore admit that the refusal to legitenough to ensure that one can either earn, or imize murder forces us to reconsider our notion keep, or safely identify one’s so-called private of utopia. In that regard, it seems possible to property—or why such an endless succession say the following: utopia is that which is in conof never-ending lawsuits?—when I consider tradiction with reality. From this point of view, all this, I feel much more sympathy with Plato, it would be completely utopian to want people and much less surprise at his refusal to legislate to stop killing people. This would be absolute utopia. It is a much lesser degree of utopia, for a city that rejected egalitarian principles.13 however, to ask that murder no longer be legitiRepublics are very easy to found, and very dif- mized. What is more, the Marxist and capitalist ficult to maintain, while with monarchies it is ideologies, both of which are based on the idea exactly the reverse. If it is Utopian schemes of progress and both of which are convinced that are wanted, I say this: the only solution of that application of their principles must inevi-

18 Albert Camus Neither Victims nor Executioners 19 Jose Luis Borges A Weary Man’s Utopia 20 Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments 21 Salvador Dali The Sectret Life of Salvador Dali 22 George Orwell Why Socialists Don’t Believe In Fun 23 Haruki Murakami 1Q84 24 Christopher Hitchens Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays 25 Georges Perec Species of spaces and other pieces 26 Bertrand Russell 27 Boris Groys Installing Communism 28 Ilya Kabakov

tably lead to social equilibrium, are utopias of a utopia in the Takashima system,” the professor much greater degree. Beyond that, they are even said with a frown. “But utopias don’t exist, of now exacting a heavy price from us. 18 course, anywhere in the world. Like alchemy or perpetual motion. What Takashima is doing, if “Now,” he said to me, “you are going to see you ask me, is making mindless robots. 23 something you have never seen before.”

He carefully handed me a copy of More’s Uto- The search for Nirvana, like the search for pia, the volume printed in Basel in 1518; some Utopia or the end of history or the classless pages and illustrations were missing. society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous It was not without some smugness that I re- one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the plied: “It is a printed book. I have more than sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxitwo thousand at home, though they are not as ety and struggle.24 old or as valuable.”

All utopias are depressing because they leave I read the title aloud. no room for chance, for difference, for the ‘miscellaneous’. Everything has been set in orThe man laughed. der and order reigns. Behind every utopia there is always some great taxonomic design: a place “No one can read two thousand books. In the for each thing and each thing in its place.25 four hundred years I have lived, I’ve not read more than half a dozen. And in any case, it is Life in More’s Utopia, as well as in most others, not the reading that matters, but the re-reading. would be intolerably dull. Diversity is essential Printing, which is now forbidden, was one of to happiness, and in Utopia there is hardly any. the worst evils of mankind, for it tended to This is a defect in all planned social Systems, multiply unnecessary texts to a dizzying de- actual as well as imaginary. 26 gree.”19 If Communism is Utopia it is indescribable The language of the Image-repertoire would because Utopia, being no-place, cannot have be precisely the utopia of language: an entirely any definite form. Every attempt to describe original, paradisiac language, the language of Communism necessarily functions as a projecAdam -- “natural, free of distortion or illusion, tion of the personal prejudices, phobias and limpid mirror of our sense, a sensual language obsessions of the writer or artist who tries to (die sensualische Sprache)”: “In the sensual undertake such description.27 language, all minds converse together, they need no other language, for this is the language I would like to say (perhaps as a final thought), of nature.20 what conclusion can be drawn from this exhibition or even from this conversation. You The poverty of a civilization which, avowedly could say this. While mankind still lives, each destroying every kind of constrained to the of us produces a utopia. Creating projects is as most practical the basest necessities, those of natural to man as the discharge of secretions. the mechanical and industrial type! The pov- People always fantasise. We make plans, proerty of a period that replaces divine luxury of grammes, compose something or other. But architecture, the highest crystallization of the when the plans are implemented in reality, esmaterial liberty of intelligence, by “engineer- pecially by those in power, who have climbed ing”, the most degrading product of necessity! quite high up the ladder of power, all these The poverty of a period which has replaced the projects end in catastrophe, blood, destrucunique liberty of faith by the tyranny of mon- tion or chaos. This produces a terrifying arc: etary utopias!... 21 projects are inevitably devised, but inevitably end in failure and death. The question arises: All efforts to describe permanent happiness, what to do with these projective and producon the other hand, have been failures. Utopias tive components? The answer is: divert them, (incidentally the coined word Utopia doesn’t channel them into special ‘utopia-receivers’. mean ‘a good place’, it means merely a ‘non- Maybe build a ‘Museum of utopias’, or many existent place’) have been common in literature such museums.28 of the past three or four hundred years but the ‘favourable’ ones are invariably unappetising, and usually lacking in vitality as well. (...)

Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache.22 “That’s it, Fukada was supposedly looking for a [7]

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PALACE OF FAILED OPTIMISM

Collapse They wanted to build one vast barn or hangar, new and shiny, a festive hangar. While we were already under the ruins, the remains of this barn, which had collapsed so spectacularly. We belonged to the end of the epic story. They started the epic and we ended it.

We saw the results, whereas they saw only the project. They were at the start, peculiar overture of the symphony, denouement fell to our share. —Ilya Kabakov

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Palace of Failed Optimism

Ilya Kabakov, Dimitri Ozerkov, Interview with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, from Utopia and Reality: El Lissitzky, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Exhibition Catalog, (Moscow: The State Hermitage Museum, 2013), 61.

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Every ideal project implies the destruction of other ideal projects. Since unfeasibility is its main feature, the ideal project must be impossible to achieve. The more absurd the proportion of the ideal project, the more powerful its strength. Because the history of the ideal project is written with blood and gun powder, someone finally decided to build a place for it. A building where ideal projects could not only coexist, but where they could harmlessly flourish. The building implied the victory of humankind by defeating the ideal project. It was conceived after realizing that failed optimism due to stagnating idealism, led to the vanishing of ambition and therefore the salvation of the world as ‘we know it’; architecture as ultimate preservation.

Every optimistic project deserves an afterlife.

Instead of using the world as a canvas to draw the utopian picture, a special place could be designated where no dream can ever be dangerous enough. Fueled by eschatological fears and an addiction for new beginnings, the new palace was the concretization of a contemporary tragedy; always contemporary, forever tragic. It forecast humankind’s eternal predicament: ideology as prognosis, orthodoxy as resistance. Faustian perversity in architectural form, the building was a structural Pandora’s Box,a cynical museum of philistinism; architecture as ultimate conformism.

Every lost cause deserves a space to be studied, critically scrutinized. For every uncompromising enterprise, there should be a space for collecting the ungraspable need to rule lives under a cosmic order of divine canon, in the form of black squares and electronic poems, of pyramids, and hexahedrons, of beautifully idealistic master plans and horrifically dreadful concentration camps. There should be a palace for the Lissitskys and the Kabakovs, for the Malevichs and the Tatlins, for the Moses and the Wrights, for the Le Corbusiers and the Hilberseimers, for the Haussmans and the Cerdas , for the Khidekels and the Chernikovs, for the Chiricos and the Palermos, for the Mendelsohns and the Konwiarz, but also for the Speers and the Iofans, for all the dream-makers and the nightmare enforcers, for the geodesic domes and the walled cities, for those who dream of anthropological transformations and radical new beginnings . In order to protect humankind from itself a –very big—pavilion was built for the coexistence of opposition and divergence, where form is free of friction and ambition can be manifest as drawings and installations, as pictures hanging from the walls and models on pedestals. A temple for the glorification of disillusionment. A palace for the ultimate ambition; architecture as ultimate absolutism.

Palace Guided by the inexhaustible curiosity of desperation, the palace for ambitious projects was said to be discovered by those willing to look for it. Like a Tarkovskian Stalker, instinct could drive the optimistic—or those curious enough— to this archival cemetery where legends are truth, where the walls hold the gospels of dreamware. Walking away from a world with no more hope in hope, contours are drawn and paths crossed in the search for hope as failure, failure as hope. In the path to find this mystical totem that a series of pictures emanate. They are all so beautifully personal; so freshly sublime. Like postcards from an idealistic countryside they display a journey of despair. An unfathomable open book; a tour guide to the utopia of utopias.

Journey The journey to that special place of places can be recalled as the consecration of an epiphany where despair meets hope. It starts with the incursion of the intoxicating wilderness beyond any regional boundary. Past all the bucolic openness and virgin landscapes, far from the city, deep into the woods, the sharp edges of the pyramid rise awkwardly above the dense contour of the trees. The jagged figure breaks the homogeneous calm of the surroundings, as if announcing the mysterious figure that waits. Beyond the stained bunker, an unusual silhouette can be spotted.

Mythical stories described it as a palace of projects; less optimistic ones as a cemetery of utopia. Its construction was fueled by fear of uncertainty. It started as a single block, cast in the slowness of weathered concrete, anchored monolithically to the ground. It was built like a hangar to store works which ambitions threatened to destabilize, as in the comforting predictability of daily life, the quotidian rhythm of the status quo. Work after work, the first section was quickly filled.

Projects were hung on the walls, displayed on pedestals. The walls were awash in a rain of light that poured through the slits in the ceiling. A second part was annexed, and as projects piled up, a third and a fourth section quickly followed. Every new hall rose above the previous one. Some sections sloping in ramps. Others cantilevered their flat slabs defiantly above the ground. The structure coiled always upwards. Cores with circulation systems scarcely supported the gravity defying structure. The concrete hovered with crushing weight, as if suggesting the severe density of its contents.

The building, if we can call it a building, grew bigger and bigger, rising like a promethean phoenix from the ashes of perennial conformism. Spiraling under hermetic control, its every movement predetermined, calculated, it reached seventy meters high. And today it keeps growing, filled with failure and extinguished ambition. A Museum of Lost Projects. A palace of failed optimism…

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Vision A white amaurosis, apart from being etimollogically a contradiction, would also be a neurological impossibility, since the brain, which would be unable to perceive the images, forms and colours of reality, would likewise be incapable, in a manner of speaking, of being covered in white, a continous white white, like a white painting without tonalities, the colours, forms and images that reality itself might present to someone with normal vision, however difficult it may be to speak, with any accuracy, of normal vision. —Jose Saramago1

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Blindness Jose Saramago, Blindness, trans. Giovanni Pontiero (London: Vintage Books, 2005) p.22.

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Wall Stalker narrated the journey of three characters in search of the essence of architecture.

After an exhausting odyssey from a city of icons to a mysterious wall, the wanderers were confronted with a blinding whiteness that not only blurred their hope to find what they were looking for, but put in question their true intentions.

straction reminiscent of the wall that left them confused or to the clearly defined urban iconography that can be recognized in the distance.

Once drawn by the hypnotizing sharpness of symbolism, the protagonists are sequestered inside Atlas, an urban maze of unremarkable buildings overlooked by four pyramidal monoliths, one of them containing what will make the wanderers discover—against their will—the Continuing where Wall Stalker left off, the plot last part of their journey. of Blindness is resumed after the characters (now on a first person point of view) are envel- Like Wall Stalker, Blindness is a graphic radioped in the whiteness of the wall they initially ography of the fictional subconscious of archicame to see in their search for answers. Once tecture. This time using pieces from Jan Garstricken by a white form of agnosia resulting barek, Eberhard Weber, Agnes Buen Garnås, from the purging experience of the mystical Rainer Brüninghaus, and Naná Vasconcelos as wall, the characters are unable to tell if what acoustic landscape the architectural narrative is they think they see is a memory of times past built once again around twelve chapers / phoor unknown possibilities of new paths to be tomontages that depict a journey to find meantaken. Going through desolated landscapes, the ing in architecture. The images evolve around characters face a dichotomy as to which path to fictional landscapes that evoke a new kind of take: the one that points to the uncertain ab- blindness of symbolism and meaning.

Agnosia It struck them by surprise…

They found themselves trapped in a thick white mist where nothing they knew could be recognized anymore…

All their memories and certitudes had turned into uncertainties...

What was it they had come looking for… what was it that had driven them here…

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As they were lost in their confusion, they didn’t notice the shapes rising in front of their recovering eyes…

Shapes so pure… Nothing like what they had ever seen before… So close and yet so ungraspable…

Then they felt it again… But this time out of the dazzling mist a clearer world… a better understanding…

They were left with a decision to make… Which path to follow? … What way to choose? …

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NOSTALGIA Slowly regaining their full perception, they were stricken by visions of an uncertain past…

Where memories of fading dreams haunted their horizon…

There was no easy decision to make… Once the path has been unveiled it has to be taken…

Every struggle is a process of choice… And the inescapable loss of other possibilities…

As they advance deeper into the secrecy of their journey, they begin to make out a distant silhouette, looking almost as if awaiting their coming…

Have they been here before? Was it where they had come from?

What they sensed seemed familiar… but what they saw was unknown…

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ATLAS Once they entered the gates, they felt captive… held in by the walls of the city…

There was no turning back…

They had attracted the attention to themselves in a place where nothing could belong…

Four shapes soared into the sky… Perfectly identical…

Bulk to their eyes…

Ideal geometries stripped of any intention other than their form…

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THE ICON Unconscious of the power that lies within them…

Guiding them against their awareness…

They were led to the source…

They were not prepared for what woul d come next…

As darkness became their only surrounding…

They couldn’t but wonder…

Was this another purgatory… … or a place with no exit?

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Narrative Every episode in a careful narrative is a premonition. —Jose Luis Borges

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Narrative Architecture A Manifesto 1 The concept of ideology critique applied here is borrowed from Peter Sloterdijk Critique of Cynical Reason (1983). According to Sloterdijk Kynicism, as opposed to modern cynicism (enlightened false consciousness), could be used as a strategy to destabilize the hegemomic powers of the establishment. Kynicism consists often of humor (through satire or irony) that attempts to highlight the impasse of absurd intellectual postures in order to carry out an ideology critique.

For more see Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

Manifesto There is a form of architecture that aims at not getting built. An architecture on paper that should not be confused with paper architecture.

An architecture based on pure statements in which real brick, mortar, and poured concrete are substituted by cut-and-pasted paper and narrative prose. An architecture about the failed and accomplished ambitions of buildings and master plans. An architecture that although focused on the critique of this ambition, is not concerned with just any form of critique. An architecture not preoccupied with the expert’s view in newspapers, nor the common man’s comments on populist design blogs, nor the propaganda centrefolds of glossy magazines.

An architecture that talks directly to architecture about architecture. An architecture of disciplinary struggle.

This form of architecture focuses on the critique of ideology, after recognizing that ideology – in its multiple incarnations – has infiltrated all spheres of architectural production, including the sphere of criticism itself. An architecture that through narrative texts and a vast repertoire of images (collages, photomontages, drawings, storyboards, comic strips, animations) – creates allegorical stories that aim to expose the impasse and misfires of architecture in theory and practice. This form of architecture is simultaneously both theory and practice.

It is theory as practice; critique as architectural project. This form of architecture is called Narrative Architecture and this is its manifesto.

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Coup In order to be an effective tool against the seriousness of architectural discourse, Narrative Architecture relies on the subversive power of humor. It paints portraits that parody through irony and sarcasm the shortcomings of ideology. Narrative Architecture turns disillusion into mockery, disappointment into subversive critique, pessimism into kynical reason.1 It drills the sharpness of critique into the ossified shell of hegemonic architectural discourse. Narrative Architecture is made out of blown-up impostures. Its components are exaggerated characteristics innate to architecture. Architectural ambition freed from the pragmatic distortions of selective inhibition.

Although heroic, Narrative Architecture is not utopian. Its colossal monuments, impossible landscapes, and allegoric texts are real depictions mirroring the absurd scenarios imagined by architectural discourse. Narrative Architecture implies the sublime autonomy of theory.

Narrative Architecture is pure theory under a magnifying glass. It is architecture as ‘endless supermarket’,’ continuous monument’ and ‘voluntary imprisonment’. Narrative Architecture is the product of failed struggles and lost wars. It recognizes its inability to ‘win’ the fight. It feeds from past, present, and future failures. Because it learned that Team 10, Yona Friedman, and even artist-turned-urbanist Constant failed to break from the modernist discourse and the tools of its ideology, Narrative Architecture turns the tools of ideology against themselves.

2 “Enlightenment is reminded how easily speaking openly can lead to camps and prisoners.

Hegemonic powers cannot be addressed so easily; they do not come voluntarily to the negotiating table with their opponents, whom they would prefer to have behind bars.” (…) “Ideology critique means the polemical continuation of the miscarried dialogue through other means.

It declares a war on consciousness, even when it pretends to be so serious and ‘nonpolemical’”. Ibid

If Modernism used every medium available – publications, architecture, urban plans, even CIAM as a platform to project its ideology – to shoot down the opposition, Narrative Architecture points the ideological guns back at Modernism. When an architectural position tries to consolidate itself as a hegemonic discourse and avoids “coming voluntarily to the table of negotiation” with its opponents, Narrative Architecture provokes “the polemical continuation of the miscarried dialogue through other means”.2 Narrative Architecture summons the dialectic properties of narrative in order to reestablish the conversation and expose the lies. If architecture promises a city made of glittering white concrete, Narrative Architecture casts the whole world in cement.

If architecture renders buildings behind curtains of dense green foliages, Narrative Architecture depicts a universe contained in a forest of skyscraping trees. If architecture decides to surf the waves of economic and social indifference, Narrative Architecture projects a world washed away by a neoliberal tsunami.

renders.3 Narrative Architecture doesn’t shoot down the banners and slogans of architectural discourse, it reads them aloud against the ideological wind so as to reveal their absurdity.

Post Mortem Because ideology presents concepts as their opposite – lies as truth, opportunism as responsibility, self-consciousness as social consciousness – it has condemned Narrative Architecture to the sterile indifference of the museum wall, to the anesthetizing beauty of the art book. However, Narrative Architecture belongs on the drawing board, on the computer screen, in the architectural discussion. Narrative Architecture belongs to the present, to the schools, to the practices. Narrative Archi3 tecture reveals the condition of the zeitgeist, Thus, we come to our first definow. If Ideology is doublethink, Narrative Arnition: “Cynicism is enlightened chitecture screams “down with Big Brother”. false consciousness.” Ibid.

While ideology is watching you, Narrative Architecture watches it back. In a world driven by nonsensical statements, the most absurd of positions then becomes the clearest path.

When everything seems to stagnate, Narrative Narrative Architecture tackles every form of Architecture keeps moving. ‘enlightened false consciousness’ and reveals what lies behind the disguising masks of social impromptu and urban reconstruction; of the intoxicating greenery of certified sustainability and neoliberalist social philanthropy, of the aesthetic fantasies-turned urban oversimplifications of parametricism and other momentary aesthetic trends; of the perverse reductionism of cartoonish diagrams and immaculate [ 35 ]

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NEW NCCA

Ideal Art and People must form a unity.

Art Shall no longer be the enjoyment of the few but the life and happiness of the masses.

The aim is alliance of the arts under the wing of a great architecture. —Arbeitstrat fßr Kunst, 1919

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ГЦСИ New NCCA NCCA National Centre for Contemporary Arts Moscow Artist Residence, Office Space, Media Zone, Library, Children’s Zone, Collection Repository, Music Hall, Theater, Cinema, Lecture Hall, Multi Hall, Exhibition Space (Permanent Collection and Temporary Collection Space), Outdoor Exhibition Space, Cafe, VIP Cafe.

International Competition Finalist 2013

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Manifesto The NCCA is the new epicenter for the creation, study and support of Contemporary Art in Russia.

either from the metro station, from the sculpture park, from the avia park, or from any surrounding building into a free circulation of open spaces that connect to public programs like halls, libraries, cafes and shops as well as Enhanced by the dialectic between the city and semi-outdoor and open air terraces with space architecture, between art and the public, be- for public exhibitions, workshops and outdoor tween landscape and building, the new NCCA activities. marks a paradigm shift of international museology. By creating a building that invites and em- The NCCA brings art to the public by directly braces the public through its open spaces the addressing its relationship with its urban connew NCCA blurs the lines between building text and surrounding landscape. An Open Museum, the building creates a promenade in and context, between art and life. which people interact with commissioned and The NCCA is not a building in the city; it is acquired exhibition pieces featured on the puban extension of it. The autonomy and flexibility lic space and on the multiple terraces featured of its spaces, either enclosed, semi-outdoor, or through the varying levels of the building, enriching the experience of not only those who completely outdoors, makes it come to the museum but of the common pethe first archetype of Museum as City.

The NCCA is not just a center for the arts; it is destrian that passes by. a building as Manifesto.

The Volumes on the ground level also contain direct access for the creative residences, ofForm and Space Instead of emulating the typical boundary that fice space, the collection depository and all the usually separates museums from their surround- loading and logistic programs. ings, the NCCA is an Open Museum. The form of the building is a direct response to both, the Exhibition Galleries programmatic complexity of the center of arts, Directly above the promenade, three interconnecting volumes contain the permanent coland the urban context that surrounds it. lection, space for temporary exhibitions, the The spatial strategy of the NCCA consists children’s gallery and the art-club café. The of a series of free standing volumes scattered exhibition galleries are accessible through three through the ground level that structurally sup- main lobbies on the ground level that are simulport three hovering megaliths that interconnect taneously connected to the outdoor major pubin mid-air. The free standing volumes contain lic space or promenade. all the non-exhibition spaces. The interconnecting megaliths contain all the exhibition galleries. Of varying heights and widths the hovering volumes provide spaces with the ultimate flexibility for exhibitions of multiple mediums, sizes Ground Level-Public Space The openness resulting from the layout of the and durations. The possibility of accessing the volumes on the ground level enhances a sym- galleries through different points allows for the biotic relationship between the NCCA and its possibility of running several shows simultanesurroundings as it draws the public coming ously without any type of conflict.

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SUPREMATIST LANDSCAPES

Suprematist The Suprematist element, whether in painting or in architecture, is free of every tendency which is social or otherwise materialistic. —Kazimir Malevich

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Suprematist Landscapes Totems without Qualities ii Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World, trans. Howard Dearstyne, (Paul Theobald and Company, 1959).

Refuge I took refuge first in the Black Square. The apparently rational Euclidean form was my shelter from the real and common world. Everything was irrelevant for me from that moment. Everything, that is, except the Black Square.

I was accused of aestheticism by those who called it abstraction, and failed to understand its scatological dimensions and potential for new creation. I was a formalist, claimed others to undermine the mission of my project. Some said I intended the Black Square to be the reduction of the world ‘as we knew it’. But the world ‘as we knew it’ didn’t mean anything to me. The truth was that the Black Square was a door opening onto another world. The Black Square provided a different perspective when everything seemed so coherent, so crystal clear.

Against all odds, I kept painting doors and windows that looked beyond our territorial boundaries and beyond our geopolitical limits. Not in

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the literal sense off course. They were mostly black shapes with paint on canvases, wood panels, or any surface, which could be painted on.

The others were not very enthusiastic about my pictures. They tried to conceal them, they tried to obstruct access to my doors and windows, blocking and distorting the view to the other side. Resistance came in from every direction and took every form. First it appeared in the shape of Boycotts; nobody came to my shows, editors were declining to publish my work.

Then the adherents of ‘utility’ argued for art as the apotheosis of a copy of a copy of a copy of utilitarian life; figurative art became abundant, political paraphernalia and vernacular traditions saturated the shows.

Each year, their grip on my doors and windows would get tighter and tighter. They accused me of being an ideologue, an iconoclast. I was heretic, a menace to their system. They knew what my doors and windows implied, they were

afraid of the new perspectives that could be opened. The vision I revealed didn’t fit their predetermined view of the world. For them everything has to have a purpose, history had to make sense, all had to provide an all-structuring logic.

are beacons that guide us through the blinding newness of the new world. The Architecton is always subjective in nature; as it appears unintelligible and disharmonious due to its non-objective abnormality. If the Black Square was a window that looked into a landscape of emptiness; the Architecton stands alone in desolation For me objectivity—life as objects, life as ob- looking back at us through that window. The jective—in itself, is meaningless. Objects and Architecton is anchored on the moist soil of a their ideology are empty creations made up to world of reasonlessness and pure feeling. draw speculative value and consolidate systems of control. Materialism with its infrastructures It took me years to outline the first Architecton. and superstructures, with its mechanical and I painted it, drew it, and made schemes of it. It metaphysical dialectics, with its natural and su- was the product of multiple attempts at finding pernatural theological myths meant nothing, formless form, shapeless shape. Since ‘Februabsolutely nothing to me. All the struggles, the ary’, I strived to deliberately abandon the objecwars, the piracy and corruption, the terror and tive representation of my surroundings, either bloodshed are vain attempts to restructure ob- physical or immaterial, to reach the summit of solescence with outdated systems. the true ‘unmasked art’ and therefore, unleash life’s true potential. All the naturalism, figuraAbsolute concepts, all encompassing world- tion, analysis of my contemporaries were nothviews and grandeur narratives based on tradi- ing more than dialectic methods that made no tional conditions and customs of the conscious sense in determining the true value and the pomind are worthless. Feeling, as I call it, is the tential of the artwork, and therefore of the life determining factor. Everybody teach you, in- that lie within it. Existence for them relied on doctrinates you to think in a predetermined the materialistic values applied by the subjective way. Feeling is replaced with preconceptions forces of the market, of politics and of society. and prejudices. The world around us, chaotic The Architecton is transcendental, totally inand unstructured is forced within the inflexible different to all the forces of the natural world, boundaries of reason. The ungraspable be- indifferent to reason and logic, to history and comes measured and quantified. The absolute culture. The foundations of the Architecton is depicted as figurative simulations. Pictures are were set on the ground of total negation. The drawn to imitate life. Life is turned into a com- structure was the concretization of the possimodity, into an object of pure consumption. bility of existential exceptionality, as supposing the radical negation of all the cultural, social, The so called “materialization” of feeling in economical, political, traditions, conventions the conscious mind means the materialization and restraints. The Architecton, like the Black of the reflection of the feeling through some Square, stood up while—and exactly at the realistic imitation of it in a plastic medium. In same time— the world, the real world came contradiction to this over-simplistic imitation I crumbling down. The Black Square is ultimate created totems, structures that were not meant nothingness, the Architecton is the ultimate to be the materialization of the feeling of the icon that occupies this void. The Architecton is conscious mind, but moreover thought as sub- the formalization of emptiness within the fulllime icons that were to outlast the ultimate im- ness of the world, an emptiness that devours, passe we were living in. Transcendental bea- destroys, consumes, annihilates, evaporates cons, these totems could potentially survive the all things, turns everything into nothing, and environment in which they are called forth. nothing into the ultimate everything. While the Black Square is the beginning of the ultimate Lighthouses for a cataclysmic shipwreck, the purge, the Architecton is all that is left when the totems are non-objective objects, architecture solid melts into air. without program, the ultimate work of art. Not only they exclude any possible reference to ‘real Society attributes to every work of art, to every objects’, objects of the ‘real world’, but they piece of architecture the aim of making a social also have no objective. These totems exist in a contribution, a political critique or at the very world abolished of goals, a world freed from least an environmental observation. Its role is itself; they are the gate to the new world. to improve society, to move things forward, although always using as a reference and as a Totems starting point, reality, the status quo.

My aim when I started to build these totems was to conceive something to cling on to when we On the other hand, the Architecton’s unique finally reached the long awaited desert in which role in the world is to be ‘unproductive’, to nothing can be perceived but pure feeling. aim at not solving anything; this totem has the These totems, or Architectons as I call them, power to abolish the puzzle of the material[ 51 ]

ist dialectic. The Architecton can only exist as in complete indifference of politics, context, and history. In fact, it can only exist in a world without politics, context or history. The Architecton’s ultimate plan is tantamount to pure negation of the rules of our materialist lives.

It breathes the existential air of eschatological nihilism. The Architecton is all that is left when there is nothing left.

This essay contains excerpts of Kazimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World, (Chicago: Paul Theobald and Company, 1959), Boris Groys, “Installing Communism” in Utopia and Reality: El Lissitzky, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Catalog of the Exhibition (St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum, 2013), and Aleksandra Shatskikh, Black Square, trans. Marian Schwartz (New Haven: Yale, 2012).

Weathered concrete display the idiosyncratic decay of these totems. It becomes more and more difficult to tell how long have these beacons been there for. The grass grows uninterruptedly, the water flows without obstacles, and the skies shift from gradients of blue to the colorless blackness of the night revealing the orthogonal contours of the Architectons. A halo alters the otherwise homogeneous tranquility of the night reflecting the light of the In the world of the Architecton the real is not stars on the faces of these totems. of any concern. There are no struggles or battles to fight. The ultimate victory has been Like the Black Square, the landscapes are primiachieved by mean of the ultimate defeat. The tive marks of the new. They make us look beworld of the Architecton means the end of yond the decorative nature of ornament and tragedy, no more two equally forces struggling accept the central role of rhythm as the pure to succeed. Pseudo reality will prevail, the real nakedness of absolute supreme feeling. These would be neglected. The new World will be a images carry on the fundamental concept previcompletely new world. There would be no past ously deformed under the inexorable forces of to be overwritten. A radical new beginning is all prejudiced rules and conditions, morals, ethics, that is left. ways of living, traditions, protocols, processes and mediums, technologies and theories. In a Landscapes world without the quantifiable statistics and Allow me to summarize how I got to these imposed values that determine our existence, landscapes and what do I see through them. we are left with Suprematist scenarios, with Although product of laborious years of explo- Landscapes of pure feeling, with Black squares rations following the search for absolute ‘noth- as windows and doors, with Architectons as toingness’, these landscapes are also the sponta- tems without qualities. neous translation of values that were revealed to me first through the ancient medium of painting. Just like the cosmic shapes of Suprematism were recorded with oils of the darkest hue, the Architectons –Suprematism experiments in space—were casted in the lightest of concretes.

These landscapes implemented Suprematism’s paradoxical condition; a non-objective world consummated as objects.

Looming over grasslands and wetlands, or over mountainous topographies and smog washed nightscapes, the Architecton is there to remind us that this is a new world; a world freed from all the goals, principles and ideals of the previous world. Fulfilling Suprematist values, the Architecton reorients our gaze from the ‘nothingness’ of the Black Square back into the world in which this ‘nothingness ‘ emerged. If the Black Square directed our sight to a world beyond, the Architecton expands our field of vision to include the world it inhabits. While the Black Square opened our world through the ultimate reduction, the Architecton multiplies and conquers the territories neglected, transformed by the Black Square.

In these landscapes no human figures can be spotted, and the few artificial constructions – except these totems- could just be abandoned remnants from a previous world. The sublime desolation of these scenarios announces that the Black Square was after all not just a mere aesthetic episode, but the representation of the first chapter of an ongoing epic.

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HOUSETELIER

Alternative Our generation has set itself the aim of working precisely in accordance with commission. But practice has shown that the work of true artistic worth can be created only when the artist sets out his own objective (the internal social commission). It would be a great pleasure to work on Mayakovsky, but where to find our palette, the modern, wellequipped printing house? Who will provide us with it? —El Lissitzky

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Housetelier Housetelier Dashilar District, Beijing Residential, Atelier, Exhibition Space Invited Study 2012

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Catalyst the Housetelier could be used by up to three Can architecture be an urban catalyst? How to different tenants simultaneously. regenerate an urban zone with interventions of specific forms of architecture?

The first level of the building situates at each of the four sides of the courtyard a lobby, service By designing a space based on the three points space (kitchen, storage, and restrooms), office of work, exhibit and live, the Housetelier cre- space, and gallery space in a sequence of spaces ates the ideal conditions to attract creative en- that relate visually and spatially. terprises that could enhance the urban context in the Dashila District both by contributing to The Second Level of the building includes a its micro economy and by fomenting cultural residential apartment whose main spaces are arand intellectual exchange through activities and ranged around the central courtyard. events.

Lantern Program Treated with a translucent polycarbonate main Conceived as an architectural prototype for ur- faรงade, the Housetelier looks radically neutral ban re-development, the Housetelier integrates during the day, while it turns into a kaleidoscopoffice space, gallery space, and living space in a ic lantern during the night, inviting those who seamless architectural strategy. By creating spac- wander around to discover the contents of the es that are visually related to a central courtyard, building. but that could also be accessed independently,

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INTERVIEWS

Painting Architecture represents people’s living condition. When I paint a building, I relate it to humanistic environment. Similarly, when I paint a Chinese building, I speak about China. It’s the same everywhere. Buildings symbolize and represent the culture of a country.

They have significant meaning.

—Meng Zhigang

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Painting a Philosophy of Emptiness Interview with Meng Zhigang Meng Zhigang is an artist Born in Guilin in 1975. After graduating from the environmental Design Department in Guilin University of Technology Meng Zhigang relocated to Beijing where he currently resides and creates his work. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions in 798 Daku Museum and Today Art Museum in Beijing and in group exhibitions in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Wuxi, Hong Kong, Xian, Milan, London and New York.

Deeply rooted in philosophical foundations, the paintings of Meng Zhigang create psychological dissections of the space that surrounds us, from the fictional landscapes of his early works, to the ethereal architectural interiors and Institutional Buildings scraped of context and depicted in his recent paintings. Mixing percussion and martial arts to his endeavour, the work of Meng Zhigang is representational of a young generation of artists that promise to contribute to the already rich Chinese art scene. www.mengzhigang.com

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Emptiness can be deceiving. Often used as an aesthetic strategy, many architectural photographs and renderings depict spaces devoid of human presence. Magazines, books and design blogs have flooded us with so much minimalistic aesthetic paraphernalia that emptiness has been deprived from its dialectic potential. But, what happens when, as a counter strategy to this contemporary phenomenon, spatial emptiness is not pursued as an aesthetic end but a meditative process?

Meng Zhigang (b. 1975, Guilin) paints architecture to depict a state of mind. After working with floating objects, and large scale religious and governmental buildings summoning a critique of ideology, his new works immerse the viewer into naked architectural interiors in a search for self-criticism. Stripped of furniture, decoration and ornament, his paintings show encounters between walls and corridors that lead us to philosophical introspection. Architecture as questions to be asked, Meng Zhigang paints self portraits as the empty spaces we (could) inhabit.

WAI discussed with Meng Zhigang the meaning of emptiness and the philosophy of the architecture of his paintings.

WAI – The first part of your education was How about the painting technique you majored in design? use? Oil painting is a contemporary tool compared to the more traditional paintMeng Zhigang – Yes. When I first tried to get ing medium here in China. Does this come into College to study oil painting, there were from your educational background or peronly a few places available. It was in 1994 and I sonal choice? was rejected twice by college, although my academic result was good enough to get in. It was Technique doesn’t matter that much. Art cares really hard to be accepted at that time for sev- most about spirit. I will probably do images or eral reasons. So then I took the Environmental installations someday. But my educational backArt Design major, which is the closest to art ground indeed affected my choice of oil paintamong all the design majors. Moreover, it’s re- ing to some extent. I learnt traditional Chinese lated to architecture as well. painting from childhood. However, in order to get in to college, I had to take an examination Even if I couldn’t major in art, my goal was on western painting. This is quite ironic. still to be an artist. During the time in college, I never stopped painting and learned from Coming from an architectural background, an oil painting professor in Guangxi Normal we are interested in the connotation of University. buildings. What do the buildings in your

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paintings represent?

Spread p.66-67 Meng Zhigang No Theme Room 87 x 133cm Oil on Canvas 2012 Personal Collection p.69 Meng Zhigang No Difference Space: Spectulative 87 x 133cm Oil on Canvas 2013 Personal Collection

Architecture represents people’s living conditions. When I paint a building, I relate it to humanistic environments. Similarly, when I paint a Chinese building, I speak about China. It’s the same everywhere. Buildings symbolize and represent the culture of a country. They have When using architecture as a metaphor for ‘emptiness’, I need to get rid of all the unnecessignificant meaning. sary artificial decorations. If you put Hitler’s ofYou are very interested in painting architec- fice supplies in one room, it becomes an office ture as we can tell by your works. Is this in- with Nazi authoritarian style. Whereas if you terest more related to painting or buildings? put a tea table in the same room and decorate it with eastern items, it becomes a space with Zen It can be seen as different stages of my artistic style. When we apply the theory of Phenomcreation. I’m currently more interested in paint- enological reduction and remove all the decoing. But in the future I want to create my own rations, what does architecture originally look architectural space if I’m capable of doing so. like? This is similar to the approach of inner pursuit in Chinese Buddhism. The meaning of So painting is just a tool to represent what space itself is the substantial expression of architecture. Yet, the emotion of architecture can you are interested in? be shaped by decoration. When painting the By means of painting and artistic behavior, my space, removing decorations is a requirement ultimate goal in life is to fulfill spiritual explo- that comes from deep in my heart. Painting the ration and pursuit. Although my current occu- exterior of a building represents my complex pation is a painter, I should be freer to work criticism towards history, while painting empty as a comprehensive artist. The purpose of art landscapes in the interior of buildings implies is about spiritual cultivation. Hence, for me, my inner demand. I need my heart to be pure. painting is a significant way of practicing, but The real me is without decorations. That’s how I use architectural space to convey this concept. definitely not an end.

In terms of artistic ideology, eastern and western cultures have different appeals. For example, apart from the buildings, these two paintings below both leave large blank areas. This is due to the Taoist thought of ‘act through nonaction’, which is an inclusive concept frequently stated in eastern art and philosophy. The empty space in my paintings is a metaphor for time and history. Very often, architecture is a witness to history. As time passes, people are no longer the same. However, architecture remains as a historical trace.

Therefore, through painting architectural space, I explore my own worldview. That is also the most important way of being responsible for my life.

Is the concept of ‘emptiness (Kong)’ then, very important in your works? If so, how do you represent ‘emptiness’ through painting architecture?

The concept of ‘emptiness’, which is important in both Taoism and Buddhism, has a strong link with the spirit of Chinese culture. In ancient times, the generation of almost all the civilizations was related to religion. Yet the ideology of religion is often based on architecture. Eventually architecture becomes the most significant symbol which carries ideology. History can be distortedly written. However, due to the exis-

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tence of a genuine ideology and philosophy carried by architecture, the truth could never be covered up. I think this idea is rather fascinating. Therefore, through painting architecture, I’m willing to reveal true history and represent the essence of cultural ideology.

So the concept of ‘emptiness’ plays a different role in painting the interior and the exterior of a building?

Yes, it has some differences. The exterior of a building landscape is an objective entity, which stands for history and the reality we can see.

The empty space in the interior landscape is like the cultivation (Xiu Lian) suggested by eastern religion. Like I said, the previous one is my perspective on history. And the latter is my requirement for my own personality, as well as being an intellectual. Apart from criticizing and questioning, I need to reflect on the solution.

Therefore, as far as I know, learning to empty my consciousness is what I need to do first.

Following the way of eastern philosophy, the wisdom behind subconsciousness would come naturally when you put yourself in the state of ‘emptiness’. I hope to gain this kind of wisdom to solve puzzles in my life.

Is there any other particular idea that you want to represent in your works?

Certainly. My works are not limited to history and personal cultivation. Some of them are my pure yearning and affection towards aesthetic sensibility. For example my painting “Azure Dream” is a retrospect of the color of sky in Ancient China. Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty was a man who loved art. One day, the

weather was remarkably clear after raining. He was deeply captivated by the blue sky above the imperial palace. This is how he was inspired to paint the famous “Auspicious Cranes”. Later he even decided to use the color of the sky in firing porcelain. Since then, another tint called ‘azure (Tian Qing Se)’ appeared in China. Unfortunately, the beautiful sky of the old times does not exist anymore. Hence this painting reflects my nostalgia for the sky in the Song Dynasty.

In terms of creative diversity, I also really wanted to cooperate with architects and accomplish some special ideas. This was another original issue at the beginning of my artistic creation.

Some of my early abstract works are imaginary architecture schemes, including “Hovering Architecture”, “The Blueprint on Aluminum” and so on. The latter one is painted on an aluminium-plastic panel. Although these architecture plans are impossible to be realized, merely the design drawings and texts are already beautiful.

So I have been thinking of collecting many of the architectural blueprints which could not be implemented. Moreover, they may also be transformed into painting in some way. From my point of view, those architectural conceptions on paper well represent human imagination. Blueprints themselves are so beautiful that, as artworks cannot be neglected.

gion and science. The last ‘Architectural Space’ series, including the exterior and the interior, shows the criticism of ideology and history in the contemporary context and the reflection on inner cultivation.

I have had a free heart since childhood. In growing older, I started to become curious about science, religion and the origin of life. Now that I’m an adult, I’m really interested in Chinese traditional culture. Then I start to reflect on the disappointing situation of current China.

Looking through the history, I got to know that Chinese history and culture experienced a severe interruption after 1949. Politics largely affected the culture in a negative way. My passion for art and culture has led to this concern for history. Later I figured out that choosing the wrong culture would greatly influence the course of history. So the reflection on culture should come first instead of history. However, only criticizing wouldn’t change anything. I admire the scholar Hu Shi more than the literary Lu Xun, because the former has put forward his methodology after criticizing. In order to create a methodology, I need to make my mind empty and try to get the ultimate wisdom. So, to summarize, my early works are fantasies with elements of science fiction and religious features.

And the subsequent paintings have a more realistic meaning in the context of contemporary art. Every professional artist must experience this process in terms of creative thinking.

So those two are basically utopian projects.

What about this painting entitled “Furry Home”? What is the specific idea behind this? Anything to do with architecture?

What’s more, my second ‘Mystical Flying Objects’ series, which focuses on the relationship This painting is like a fairy tale world, same between religion and science, is the most imas some of my following works. I think many portant stage in my painting. Chinese ideology buildings will eventually escape the earth grav- is used to advocate a form of contrarian duality. So my ‘Dust’ series is about hovering ar- ism or crude scientism argument, which tends chitecture. I hope buildings will be suspended to be oversimplified. Before, Chinese culture in the future. In the air, there is another micro was diverse. Later it became singular and tends world which is full of life. In this world, every- to argue the contradiction between religion and thing is floating like dust, including architecture science. As far as I know, religion and science and many other things. It’s worth mentioning actually pursue the same destination for univerthat the word ‘dust’ also contains implicit mean- sal truth. It’s not necessary to make them coning in Buddhism, which is very interesting. tradict each other. Religion and science have been guiding human being’s progress in differPreviously we have got a rough understand- ent fields. Those hovering objects like airships ing of your works through some casual with Chinese characteristics in my paintings questions. Now let’s be more specific. So in combine the mystery of religion and the space general, what is the order of your painting in reality. This kind of spacious interpretation process? matters a lot to today’s Chinese people, since our minds have been imprisoned for too long.

This book is a collection of my paintings published on the occasion of my solo exhibition ‘I This work called “Flying Altar” is very special to Am Not in the City’ in 2013. It looks back on me. It marks that I have achieved the transformy painting process in a flashback. mation from the second series to the third one.

The Temple of Heaven is a piece of Chinese Overall, my works have three main series. The architecture specifically built for worshipping earliest ‘Dust’ series is about hovering architec- god. It has a remarkably strong relationship ture and the future. The second ‘Mystical Fly- with both theology and eastern philosophy. I ing Objects’ series is my attitude towards reli- painted it into the shape of a flying saucer so [ 71 ]

as to integrate the divinity of architecture with named “Monument” ? a futuristic Sci-Fi sense. At this point, I have emotionally connected architecture, religion “Monument” was painted in 2008. I was fascinated by massive concrete architecture at that and science. time. It feels like the existence of massive arCan you talk more about your psychological chitecture implies people’s yearning for divintransformation in the process of painting? ity and a mysterious world. Through painting along with reading on religion and history I My psychological transformation is also the finally have chosen eastern philosophy, which is process of gaining a deeper understanding of easier for me to comprehend and get close to, art. I can put aside my social identity as an artist to guide my artistic creations including depicting the solemnity and divinity of architecture. and go back to mental growth.

The recent ‘Nondistinctive Space’ paintings are I have been a fan of science and Sci-Fi liter- much closer to real life. It’s also a result of my ary works since childhood. At the same time, exploration by applying an eastern artistic conI also like Neo-Taoism such as “The Book of ception.

Changes”, Constellations, etc. I actually never thought they are contradictory. Later I started Are those interior paintings imaginary or to question the origin of humans in the per- painted from existing buildings? spective of metaphysics. Once I knew that philosophy couldn’t solve all the puzzles, I moved They are basically real architectural spaces. “A to explore religion. In this process, I found that Corner at UCCA” shows a corner at Ullens our early attitudes towards religion and science Center For Contemporary Art in Beijing 798 were quite ambiguous, which is different from Art Zone. I took a picture first before paintthe subjective and superstitious propaganda we ing. Sometimes I will look for picture materifind now. Both religion and science explore the als of space and subjectively remove furniture same ultimate question of the universe. In an- and decorations to get the empty space I need. cient China, our culture was rich and diverse. “Tranquil Life” is an exception. The landscape But in modern times it has become material- is in my friend’s home. I kept the furniture beistic and monistic, which is rather distressing. cause the beauty of minimalism deeply touched There was a time when I felt the pursuit of art me. I don’t really need to remove anything in it. and ideals was totally absurd. I was desperate Sometimes empty architectural space looks like about this. Later I figured out that there might an abstract painting. However, in Chinese aesbe aliens. The world as told by god and Buddha thetic education, people pay too little attention might exist. Humans may have soul. Since then, to abstract aesthetics. Chinese people get used I have gained a diverse view about the world. to appreciate narrative and story-telling paintings. But I prefer to view the combination of Life is meaningful again. space and structure as an abstract image.

The choice of culture determines the direction of history. Art is too significant. It decides the So the interior paintings have a form of abfuture of everything. So art is an important tool stract thinking behind them? in my life. It helps me develop a method for self-cultivation and improve my quality of life. Most Chinese people don’t really understand All the connections and changes in my works abstract painting. Even critics avoid explaining abstract art. Most of the time I tell people my are a must for my process of growth. works are just about simple and elegant spaces.

So the process of painting every work helps I express the oriental Zen mood by the ‘emptiness’ of the minimalist environment: plain you to reach your inner pursuit? color tone and frozen time. So I could just hide Right. I have been trying to elevate the realm my passion for abstract aesthetics in a specific of my inner world through painting. People space. take different roads to seek the truth. For me it is art. It helps my heart become purer and This painting “Untitled | Winter” shows simpler. Meanwhile the transformation of my the exterior of a contemporary house. Do works proceeds slowly as well. The process of you have abstract thinking in this as well?

And does it indicate a new possibility in the artistic creation is a kind of inner cultivation.

‘Architectural Space’ series?

Do you feel that you are reaching this state “Untitled | Winter” mostly represents the conof inner harmony? temporary Zen style Landscape. I appreciate its cement texture. It’s a modern building full Yes, I’m on the way. of the beauty of modernity. The whole landWhat prompted you to paint this work scape’s sense of ‘emptiness’ is full of oriental [ 72 ]

enced me the most. However, this concept is only the beginning of one’s personal cultivation. Regardless of Buddhism or Taoism or Confucianism, there is an ultimate goal of human cultivation that will meet the final moral standard. After that your soul will be set free and the essence of the world will come out.

Those exceptional functions mentioned in mythology are only small episodes on the way to You mentioned that you may want to go reach the moral standard, but not the ultimate back to paint more imaginary works after goal. Yet, the premise of meeting this standard the ‘Architectural Space’ series. What are is to empty the secular mind. your current works like? What’s the main The most advanced moral concept in eastguiding concept? ern culture is getting closer and closer to the Yes, I’m planning to paint some abstract ultimate law of the sky, the earth and nature. works. But currently I’m still working on a sub To achieve this goal, one needs to block the series of the interior paintings called ‘Nondis- secular values in sociology and forget the conditioned reflex of the physical senses. This is tinctive Space’. like the reduction method found in Husserl’s Taoist thoughts have a profound influence on ‘phenomenology’, as I mentioned earlier. Give my artistic creation. The aesthetic notion of up the outer label in order to explore the actual “Tao” exists throughout the Chinese cultural essence. Sometimes eastern wisdom and westhistory. However, nowadays lots of ordinary ern wisdom could arrive at the same destination scholars misunderstand the core values of Chi- through different ways. Hence, I believe the nese culture, especially traditional culture and purpose of art is about spiritual cultivation. The art. They usually think that the ancient Chinese quintessence of ‘Tao’ explores the essence of intellectual (Shi Da FU), along with the artists, nature. The aesthetics of eastern art is to reveal is a group of people who tend to escape society. the modest and unadorned beauty of nature, so In fact, they have been using their own ways as to guide the meaning of life. to create a perfect world on the basis of Taoist concepts in the field of art. This is the core When painting, I like to apply the sense of spirit and content of the values of Chinese art. form in architecture and space to take away color and structure. And the virtual gray space corI have been exploring this idea. In the light of responds to my inner experience of emptiness.

Chinese Taoist and Buddhist point of view, only The process of painting allows me to achieve when people put their mind in a state of ‘empti- absolute quietness. And through artistic behavness’, can the ultimate wisdom emerge from the ior, I will keep seeking the plain beauty of the depth of their soul rather than logical thinking. great ‘Tao’.

So I hope my artistic experience follows the same rule. It’s worth mentioning that, in Chi- We can tell that you are looking to thoroughnese traditional culture the word ‘wisdom (Zhi ly understand what architecture, buildings Hui)’ has two characters, respectively “Zhi” and and space mean and all the different philo“Hui”, which have different explanations. ‘Zhi’ sophical questions related. From the ideolis on behalf of the knowledge which could be ogy of “Monument” to the pure essence acquired by learning and logical thinking, while of the ‘Architectural Space’ series, all your ‘Hui’ means the sophistication of the soul, that works have deep explorations. Have you is, the most fundamental insight in subcon- ever been strongly affected by any figure, sciousness. If interpreted in a modern way, the architect or artist? first primary wisdom is based on brain thinking.

And the second more advanced wisdom is deep I haven’t been strongly affected by any specific inside and beyond thinking. This advanced wis- figure. Yet I’m mostly inspired by my reading dom is like ‘love’. But love is not the most ap- experience on different cultures. Reading helps me change the misreading of western culture propriate explanation. and start to study Chinese traditional culture by Being an artist as well as an intellectual, you myself. Then I could establish the standard of have got a deep understanding of Chinese judging the culture. And based on this standard, culture and philosophy. Which philosophi- I can understand architecture, painting and cal thought or theory has influenced you other cultural phenomenon better in order to the most? Can you explain more about how guide my artistic creation. This is a long journey to rediscover Chinese traditional aesthetics. It’s Taoist values are reflected in your works? a bit sad that China’s education system is quite The Taoist concept of ‘emptiness’has influ- strange. From childhood, we start to learn the taste and the sequestered ancient Chinese landscape painting. It meets the traditional Chinese Taoist aesthetics. This kind of elegant simplicity echoes the style of western minimalism.

This is the last painting painted before my solo exhibition at Today Art Museum in 2013. One of my projects for next year is to continue and improve this series of works.

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so-called modern value system from the west, which is far away from Chinese traditional values and also westerners’ understanding of their own culture. Then in adolescence we continue to read western philosophy and humanist knowledge. However, we have to experience mostly Chinese social occasions in real life and follow norms and habits of traditional family ethics. The majority of people will eventually develop kinds of weird life values which are neither eastern nor western. And they will find that all the mixed knowledge will not be able to solve many of the problems in real life after they step into society. Then, what on earth are to be the similarities and differences between eastern and western culture? So I need to sort out many ultimate values to guide my life and artistic creation. Otherwise I probably would be lost in the complicated and pluralistic modern life like many others.

quirements. His subjective intention was to use this new architectural style to eliminate class divisions in any residence. Since the 1950s, this kind of building structure has been widely used in China, but only for senior cadres. It’s quite ironic that a kind of building designed according to civic consciousness by an excellent architect can be turned round to become a privilege under another national ideology. So this painting shows my attitude of criticizing political reality and history.

We can notice your unusual sensitivity towards architecture, which is not very common even among architects, especially after we have seen all those money driven practices nowadays. What’s your opinion on this phenomenon?

I opened an environmental art design company once with another two friends. So I’m lucky to have experienced two professional identities respectively in design and art. I can understand better how painting. Architecture or business can have an effect on art through different angles. Social phenomena changes all the time. A good social environment needs to be led by a positive cultural form. The operation of modern society fairly depends on the involvement of commercial activities. When used properly, commerce does not affect the creation and communication of art. Commercial civilization is the main feature of modern society. The wealth itself doesn’t have good or evil properties. For instance many Hollywood blockbusters will also tell stories about love and courage in order to touch people. Hiding universal values in popular culture is very smart, which is also a good place to learn from the west.

Sometimes, looking into our own culture from an outsider’s viewpoint can be a good approach. I really appreciate a Japanese philosopher named Kakuzo Okakura. Through many years’ research, he has summarized the Chinese culture into three main aspects by using the simplest words. Confucianism deals with the social relationship in real life. Taoism guides for artistic creation. Buddhism explains life and death. The theory of ‘Tao’ is mainly put forward by two ancient scholars Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Taoism emphasizes that human beings should follow the natural law of ‘non-action’ and worship the most unadorned beauty of nature between heaven and earth.

Taoism’s biggest secret is the unity of human and universe. Human and nature cannot be separated. ‘Tao’ is almost god itself. It is the most fundamental operation mode of universe along with scientific law itself. Taoist theory has Apart from the ancient philosophy that inalways been the core content to guide Chinese fluences your life and works, how can you art. You can’t understand Chinese art without explain the contemporary feature of your it. This understanding is also a great help for paintings? me to work in the art field.

The contemporary feature in my works is maniLe Corbusier is one of my favorite architects fest in my renewed study and understanding of and artists. He first aroused my interest in mod- Chinese traditional culture. I use art to criticize ern art and architecture and also broadened my and reflect on our history and reality. This is the cognition on artistic identity. In recent years, the obligation of intelligentsia and artist, as well as books of some sinologists, such as Jonathan D. the meaning of existing.

Spence and James Cahill, have deepened my diverse interpretation on Chinese culture.

It’s important to know that 1994 was a key turning point for Chinese culture. The new reIs there any direct reference from an archi- gime has chosen a completely different cultural tect in your works? strategy. In the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, many Chinese intellectuals were perseOne of my paintings called “Youth Commu- cuted to death. Being well-educated became nity” was inspired by Le Corbusier. After the a crime. Due to political unrest and the death Second World War, he invented this kind of of older intellectuals, the contemporary artists concrete slab structure with the purpose of born in the 1950s and 60s have missed the opbuilding many low cost buildings in a short portunity to learn and inherit Chinese culture. time to meet post-war young people’s living re- Their ability and social values are embodied [ 74 ]

in winning our part of the social discourse in the 1980s, and they can put forward some new ideas and study certain modern western culture.

But the problem is that they are not as welleducated as the older generation of intellectuals during the period of Republican China whose worldview is relatively complete. They have received education on Chinese traditional culture as a child and later studied abroad to see the western society. After the culture rupture caused by the Cultural Revolution, a lot of young intellectuals and artists now start to take an interest in Chinese traditional culture again. Because of the rich information in contemporary society, it’s relatively easy to learn about Chinese culture and understand western universal values in a more comprehensive and modern way. Contemporary young artists have a broader horizon than the previous generation.

When I was little, I deemed that science would be more useful than art, because science has been changing people’s way of life in terms of material and technology. Yet art is only a kind of social activity for self-cultivation. Later I get to know the importance of art after learning history. Actually the progress on culture and art promotes all the progress on science and technology. China is different from other countries because we have chosen different politics and culture. The present social situation is determined by the selected culture. Criticism of history always starts from the cultural and artistic field. A healthy culture can create an enlightened political life. While an ignorant culture can put back the clock of history. Although, on the face of it, the intelligentsia’s power has been weak, the evolution of the course of history is invariably promoted by them.

In the future, China’s young artists and intellectuals will become more important in the course of history. They will have to cross the cultural rupture caused by modern Chinese history and repair our incomplete cultural context.

Each generation has their own mission in their own time. This is a mega trend. My individual pursuit is close to this direction as well. In the process of cultural and historical evolution, as part of an intelligentsia, I would be alert to the change of current affairs and also try my best to create in art.

“The Theory of the Origin of Human Inequality” by Rousseau directly caused the French Revolution. Hitler’s misunderstanding of Nietzsche led to the destructive Nazi regime. Art influences the society in a concealed but powerful way. I hope to touch the essential wisdom of oriental philosophy and balance people’s lives in this frenetic world by painting in a simple and plain way. As an old Chinese saying goes, everything depends on human effort. I can only try my best to be responsible for my own life.

However, if I could make the world a better place to live in, why not?

How do you consider the social function of your paintings?

Can you foresee the developing path of your artistic creation? Are there any new diThe origin of the ancient painting itself has a rections you want to take? direct causality with social moralization. When developed into art, art records human history. I hope my future works would try more new Then humans also develop their cognitive abil- materials and have a richer means of expresity of thinking through art. I hope to keep im- sion. It takes time though. There is also a posproving myself in real life and ultimately influ- sibility to combine painting with installation art. Maybe there will be more space creations. ence society in a positive way.

I have written down some relevant plans in my working journal. Hope they can be put into effect soon along with new exhibitions.

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The Architecture of Curating Interview with Elias Redstone Elias Redstone is an independent curator, writer and editor based in London and Paris.

He is the curator of the ARCHIZINES archive and touring exhibition, the editor-in-chief of the London Architecture Diary, an exhibitor in the British Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale and the author of Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography, to be published by Phaidon in 2014.

Archizines is perhaps one of the exhibitions of contemporary architecture that has travelled the most around the world. Exhibited in cities that range from London, to New York, to Buenos Aires, to Melbourne, Tokyo and Shanghai its level of influence on generations of emerging architects and students around the world it’s still up to be measured in years to come.

What started as a personal interest in printed media with a focus on architectural and urban space, developed in a full documented exhibition with more than a hundred independent and alternative publications from more than five continents.

The exhibition was conceived by Elias Redstone, a London and Paris-based curator, editor, and author, whose project Archizines lines up in a constellation of other projects that includes curating the installation Hairywood and the photography exhibition I Shot Previously, Elias was the curator Norman Foster at the Architecture Foundation’s temporary Yard Gallery, and authoring of the Polish Pavilion at the 2010 Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography, to be published by Phaidon Venice Architecture Biennale, in 2014. hub curator of the 2008 London Festival of Architecture and senior curator at the Architecture Foundation, where he worked from 2003 to 2010. During this period he initiated a programme of exhibitions, installations, events, film screenings and international exchanges with emerging and established architects, artists, designers, photographers and filmmakers. He curated the Architecture Foundation’s temporary Yard Gallery – including the award-winning installation Hairywood and photography exhibition I Shot Norman Foster – and the Closet Gallery, conceived by artist Simon Fujiwara. [ 76 ]

WAI discussed with Elias Redstone the curiosity and instinct that drives the architecture of his curating.

WAI– We would like to start with your background as a curator. There is certain trademark in your work, like in the Archizines touring exhibition, where you look at young upcoming creatives, not necessarily architects or urbanists. You also have been doing research and co-curating projects, about architecture in latin-america, you have your pieces of the London underground for the New-York Times. Do you have a special interest in emerging talent?

Elias Redstone- I guess I’m interested in new ideas, new talent, and what is coming next. For me when things get too established it becomes something else. Obviously it’s not saying that only new things are good, but I see myself as a curator to bring people’s attention to things that may have been overlooked or not yet appreciated.

About your education, you studied in the London School of Economics, City Design and Social Science, which is something that

Elias has delivered projects in partnership with the Architectural Association, Barbican, British Council, Center for Architecture NYC, Design Museum, MoMA, Southbank Centre, Tate Modern and Victoria & Albert Museum. He has edited publications for Sternberg Press and Bedford Press, acted as a contributing editor for Arena Homme Plus and GQ Style, and written for a number of international magazines including New York Times T Magazine, Wallpaper, PIN–UP and Monument.

Elias holds an MSc in City Design & Social Science from the London School of Economics and was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship in 2008 to research contemporary architecture in Latin America. www.eliasredstone.com

is somehow related to our urban environment. Do you think that this reflects in the way you curate or in the topics you are more sensible about?

not necessarily guaranties a direct relationship with architecture. Some people see the city completely as a system of infrastructures and empty spaces. But we feel that, from our outsider’s perspective, that you Yes, a lot of my studies were about the urban have some affinity with architecture also. experience and not necessarily about designing architecture, but considering the impact of ar- I do love it, that’s why I do what I do. But at chitecture on people. Since I didn’t study archi- the same time, I can’t tell you that I will be altecture, I guess I will have that perpetual kind ways working with architecture. There are other of outsider gaze on the world of architecture. things that interest me and I still have many It’s something I’m passionate about and can be years ahead so it may branch off away of archicurious about without necessarily having the tecture at some point. In that moment it’s the burden of being an architect myself. focus of everything I’m working on, because I still have a lot to look at to resolve myself, When you create all these curatorial experi- things I am interested in and curious about and ences, do you try to relate them to one and want to understand. But I want my work to inanother, behind a possible narrative? Or do spire me so as long as it does that and as long as you have different agenda for each one of architecture has something to offer then I will the projects? keep on looking at it, but maybe one day I will move to something else.

Each project is totally separated. I consider and treat each project individually. At the same time, When you realize these curatorial projects, I made a website for my work a few years ago do you have a theory or a hypothesis you and it was the first time that I stopped to look at want to prove with the project? Or is it them and starting to see themes emerging that I mostly about interest? We can see how the didn’t even noticed at the time. You mentioned ideas can change throughout, for example working with younger people, architects, de- this exhibition has been travelling so much signers or artists. I think they are themes emerg- that we are sure a lot of ideas must have ing but I think that with any kind of creative changed in the process. But other projects practise it’s only natural and you are drown to that you have developed, are they about thecertain things. ories, ideas or more curiosity?

That’s not to sound like I have career plans or that I am manoeuvring projects to get to some place, it’s quite nice not necessarily knowing what’s coming in the future but just being in a position where I can research and develop projects that I’m really passionate about.

In that same context, do you feel that one curatorial project influences another curatorial project that is not necessarily related?

Yes, for example photography is a big interest for me. I’m very passionate about photography, and it is very important for me specially as looking at cities and architecture. For example, two projects I am currently working on at the moment: I’m publishing a book that is a survey of 50 contemporary photographers who were looking at architecture. I’m also curating an exhibition in London at the Barbican that is looking at key figures from the 1930’s until today which have developed this relationship between photography and architecture. It is two very distinct separated projects that are looking at the same sort of discipline, from different angles and from different time periods.

Curiosity and instinct. I am a strong believer in sort of eager feelings for something, so when I teach curatorial students I try to encourage them to be instinctive. What feels important to address now and then look at everything around it. If you are not instinctive around something, you are not going to have the passion for it.

Some people will start with a load of research and then narrow something down, refine it. I will start being instinctive about something, being curious about it, and exploring it further to see if there’s something interesting there. I guess that’s just the way I work.

Does you curatorial methods change a lot from project to project?

Yes they have to. I think that’s something very interesting especially when you are curating something. When you are curating around architecture every project is so totally different.

You are thrown at deep end every single time.

Working on something like Archizines is totally different than working on putting a photography exhibition together. They have different compositions, different relationship that have to be built, different subjects matters that you Do you feel that you are growing closer to are looking at. architecture with every project? Because being interested in the urban phenomenon Sometimes you have to make it up as you go, [ 77 ]

but that keeps it exiting, especially when you are running a space, like when I used to work at the Architecture Foundation. There was no one sort of model for doing a show. Sometimes you just invite an architect to do something and respond to a space, and you hand in over a lot of creative control to that person. Other time it would be a group exhibition and you are really working through the ideas and drive them at every step of the way.

Do you find a difference in the type of challenges you are confronted with different types of exhibitions? Is it more challenging to deal with the architecture exhibitions or with contemporary art or photography?

Every show has its own challenges I can tell you! In the end no, it shouldn’t matter. It’s a process, curating. I start with an idea but then I have to work through it, it doesn’t necessarily matter what the subject is. It’s about having an interest in presenting an idea to the public and thinking about how you do that and how do you work through that process. I am more interested in not defining that from the start but working at it organically.

You talked about Archizines sort of evolving, that was fantastic. The first thing I did was make a website for it and I changed it a lot and I play around with it. I learned about how you can sort of talk about all this material.

It was really nice working this way, which was so much more fluid than developing an entire show, press and print, put it on the wall and that’s that! It was a much more organic process.

At the moment the exhibition I’m curating at the Barbican, I’m actually curating in collaboration with one of the curators of the Barbican Centre; it’s the first time I’ve co-curated a show and I have to admit I love it. It’s brilliant; it’s a totally different way of working. It got me excited about curating again. It’s nice. Being a solo curator on a project you have the freedom to make every decision, so it becomes a very personal work, but there’s something very beautiful about going through this process with somebody else. Sharing the ideas, make a joint show and what you end up with is less predictable form the start. It’s two minds coming together. I’m really looking forward to walking through a show, which will appear as very sort of clear project to the world. I can walk though with my co-curator and we could talk and break down the decisions. It will just be nice to see a show we will have brought to the world together.

feedback of the people that go to watch the projects, the exhibitions?

Feedback is very important. I always suggest to student curators that if they are putting on an exhibition they should spend some time in the gallery. So not necessary feedback from the form, but sort of like seeing how the people experience it and how they respond to it.

I wouldn’t say that the feedback of one show will directly inform the other. You will take on board and learn from it generally. Each project is often very particular so you just have of sort learn from your mistakes generally but I don’t think that it necessarily directs the sort of the content or ideas of another project.

The Archizines exhibition is quite unique because it started with your website. That also means that beyond having the exhibition, you will always have a more permanent statement. Do you also use this kind of media for different shows you are doing? Like a virtual platform? What about the catalogues for your shows? How do you see this relationship with time, between an exhibitions and leaving a more permanent trace of these projects?

Catalogues are very important; I only learned that from experience. Exhibitions are so temporary and they respond and reflect to a specific and special moment in time. That’s wonderful, every one exhibition is of a time and of a place.

If you did this exhibition 10 years later it would be a different show with a different meaning to it. That’s so beautiful about it.

So a catalogue or a document is an additional media and content if people want to dive deeper into the show. Off course this permanent side of it is important. But often when you are putting up a show you are so busy with the physical content that sometimes a catalogue is left behind, especially if there’s not funding for it.

At the same time I think that the Internet is also very interesting as a sort of alternative space to work with. I don’t think it replaces an exhibition per say but for example in 2006 I did an online project for the Venice Biennale. It was collaboration with myself at the Architecture Foundation with Paola Antonelli at the MoMa in New-York, to collaborate. It was this two institutions coming together to document all the activity and energy that was taking place in the Biennale and broadcast it out.

Unless you are there, it’s very hard to experience just from the kind of reviews in magazines.

Once the shows are in, is it very impor- That project was totally online and we were intant for the next show, for example, the vited. It was called the Venice Super Blog and [ 78 ]

it was a super blog. We invited many voices, architects, critics, and academics who could contribute and just sort of capture everything that was going on around. It was phenomenally successful. Everyone that was involved, it felt like quite a landmark project. At that time, people were not using the Internet this way. People used to blog in but there was no twitter, there was no immediacy, no group voice happening, so it pre-dated all that. It was live in the media and it was instinctive, and it wasn’t necessarily planned ahead to how it was going to turn out or what we were doing. I think that sense of energy, perhaps naivety really came through and I think people really enjoyed that. At the same time, I’m not even sure that the website even exists anymore, because you know if you don’t maintain it, it disappears.

website. You need to consider that case by case on project bases. One problem when you are looking at architecture projects, there’s so many exhibitions that should just really be a book, they don’t need to be on a wall in a gallery, it doesn’t add anything, or bring anything else that something that should be read.

But for most of the exhibitions is about having the good resources and how you can at the best utilise them. What’s the most you can get from an exhibition? I try and use exhibitions as a space to generate ideas and content as opposed at just being a presentation that already exists.

Through many of my projects, it provides opportunities for new art to be developed, for architects and artists to develop their practice in new and different ways.

So even those different forms of exhibitions So in that sense a curatorial project is a creand works can be as transient, the same with ative project in itself. Because sometimes catalogues if you don’t keep a copy. people misread curating as being an institutionalized process or responsibility to disGoing in the same direction, talking more play creative projects. about how you see and you overview the relationship with this alternative mediums, I don’t think there is one way of being a curathat can complement or even challenge an tor. There is a traditional important role of the exhibition. Do you see a different approach curator to be caring for materials and present it, taken to reach people, or should there be and look after collections and things like that. new way? For example, the Archizines ex- There’s always a certain amount of creativity inhibition is very pedagogical; it’s almost like volved. But the extent to which the curator will an educative tool for the public, for the ar- drive a project will depend on the show and on chitects, for everybody. Are they other ways that curator. to broaden even more the audience?

So in your case, you see it more like a creI’m sure. Every project or every exhibition ative project. needs to be considered and thought through for what must be the most appropriate tool to I definitely believe that curating is a creative achieve the aims. With exhibitions, it is perhaps process. If it was purely administrative role I not always appropriate to have a catalogue or a wouldn’t be interested in doing it.

[ 79 ]

The Possibility of Sitelessness Interview with François Blanciak

Architecture reached a critical point in 2008. While the crash of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Wall Street could have marked a precipitated end to a decade of vertiginous architectural production, that year also brought the opportunity to contemplate and reflect upon the state of architecture in the 21st century.

Also in 2008 François Blanciak published a book titled SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms.

While its one thousand and one hand drawn buildings with singular shapes seem to suggest a theory of multiple design directions, a closer look at the publication reveals an architecture that achieves coherence through its sublime pursuit of formal exploration.

Either a symptomatic diagnosis of a truncated decade, an epiphany of pure creative inspiration or a gospel of architecture for years to come, Siteless belongs to those works of architectural intelligence that are valuable either as isolated sparks of visceral inventiveness or as perverse narratives of sharp disciplinary criticism. Like Pure Hardcore Icons, Siteless focuses on the relationship between pure form and architecture.

WAI discussed with François Blanciak the underlying potential, the limitations and the possibility of Siteless architecture.

François Blanciak is a French architect and Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. Prior to completing both his Master’s and PhD at the University of Tokyo, he has worked for architectural firms in Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and New York, with architects including Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman. His work has been exhibited at various venues, including the Canadian Center for Architecture and the Venice Architecture Biennale.

François has served as an invited design critic at Rice University, and has lectured at Tunghai University, the University of Michigan, and Tsinghua University.

He is the author of SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms (MIT Press, 2008). www.blanciak.com [ 80 ]

WAI: Siteless was published in a critical year. 2008 not only marked a rupture with the current financial system and sent complete countries into an economic debacle that had direct effects on architecture, but served as a symbolic closure of an extended decade that saw an explosion of architectural imagery. Mass media either as printed press or virtual bytes stimulated a proliferation of building icons (real or virtual) that seemed to appear everywhere in the world.

Was the publication of Siteless motivated by a specific event or phenomenon in architecture? Or, was it more of a personal reflection on the possibilities and limitations of the discipline? Could you tell us more about how Siteless came into being?

François Blanciak: It would be somewhat misleading to state that this book was specifically written, or rather produced, as an anticipation of the events of 2008, or even that it was meant to trigger such a debacle. But it is true that the

further we get from that publication date, the more I realize the symbolic value of this book, its implications, and the relevance of its content with regards to the trajectory of architecture, both as a practice and as a discipline, since then. To a point that makes me think that Siteless might have been an agent in the shifting of architectural paradigms which we are now witnessing. That so little has happened in this field since the publication of this book is both preoccupying and exciting. This being said, it took about five years to develop the book into a thorough publication proposal, and the manuscript had typically to be sent a year before its publication date. So one might talk about a coincidence, but the intentions which underpinned the book, and its effects — the flooding of the market of form that a thousand previously unpublished building shapes constitute — might also be at stake in the subsequent demise of architecture. A friend of mine in New York once told me: “With this book, you killed architecture.” I think what he meant was

that this series of forms had the potential to impede architects, rather than to enable them, by appropriating a large number of formal concepts all at once, thus short-circuiting the endless search for formal complexity that you refer to. So there was also this desire to somehow exhaust the potentialities of architectural form, in order to transcend this very issue, not only for architecture, but also for me, in order to be able to focus on other points of interest within this field. Authors often feel that they publish what they publish to simply evacuate their mind, to paradoxically get rid of what they set out to exert control over. I can sympathize with this condition. However, I shall stress that this book is not merely aimed at being destructive, or obstructive. It is in fact essentially meant to be more of a tool to trigger the imagination of the reader, a way to store one’s creative impulses, rather than a means to display an array of morphological ideas to be copied, as some architects might have misinterpreted.

In the introduction of Siteless you stated regarding your buildings that “although a number of these figures constitute mere criticisms of recurrent paradigms in the discipline, most aspire to innovate a more diverse future; to the point that many require construction techniques not yet available to date, if not different gravitational values.” Our intention is to understand the current state of the discipline and its almost fetishistic relationship with form. Although we see the subversive potential of a publication like Siteless in which, like you stated, words become substituted almost completely by drawings of forms, we are left wondering if the original intention of the publication was to provoke the discipline or to explore the potential of accepting architecture’s infatuation with form?

The original intention was to do both. And I think that one couldn’t be done without the other, in the sense that the exhaustion and exacerbation of architectural form could not be achieved without a certain acceptance of form as a primary component of architecture, and a certain abiding to the rules of morphological research within the discipline. What might seem unsettling is that the book does not uphold a specific method to produce architecture.

If anything, this book presents the result of an intense practice of architectural hesitation.

Siteless is a complex book, in the sense that it endeavors to have both artistic and academic values. It is compulsive in the way it derives a myriad of architectural forms with no site, scale, or program, but it also embodies a rational impetus to redefine architectural research as a prospective field, which conveys the book a specific meaning, at a time when universities are

struggling to understand what this research territory consists of. This is why the parallel with the graphic nature of language was so important in the layout of the book.

Carl Jung called “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious” the set of images embedded in people everywhere. When this idea is translated into architecture we can see how, for example, pyramids, spheres, and cubes keep appearing throughout history independently from any religious, cultural, social or economic circumstances.

These forms seem to have a life of their own and their meaning seems to change according to the circumstances that surround them. As examples we can look at the Pyramids of Giza, Foster’s Palace in Astana, and Piranesi’s depictions, or the ideal buildings of Boullée and Ledoux. Like you seem to suggest in Siteless, contemporary architecture seems to be expanding the repertoire of pure forms. Can an open acknowledgement in which form is no longer a Taboo change the discipline up to the point in which even architectural education is changed?

That’s an interesting point that relates directly to a graduate studio that I have taught last semester at the University of Sydney. The brief that I devised demanded students to focus on one pure form as a basis for morphological investigation and design across the whole semester. In this case the form was a tetrahedron with fixed dimensions, which reached over 100 meters high. Following an intense analysis of a given site and its surroundings, the students were asked to determine their own building program. The studio brief thus constituted an experiment in itself, as a geometrical straightjacket which left at first glance little room for formal experimentation, but which nevertheless provided them with a high degree of flexibility in terms of interpretation of this morphological theme. In accordance with the intentional framework of each project, this initial pure form could be distorted, fragmented, liquefied, displaced, granulated, or otherwise affected by any other transformative operations deemed meaningful. Such a project methodology is intended to break with the usual “programplus-site-equals-form” project pattern that is so common in architectural education, where site and program are fixed by the brief, and where form is meant to be the logical result of a linear design operation that involves the addition of these two initial given values. This is where the intention of the studio connects with the modus operandi of Siteless, as this traditional sequence is inverted in the brief: we start with form, then site, and the program is to be determined through the project. Hence, the project [ 81 ]

becomes a tool for analysis. Though it was initially looked upon as rather disciplinarian and radical by certain colleagues, the results of the studio were surprisingly creative.

Is Siteless a product of its time, or could it have been written 20 years ago, or 20 years in the future? On that same line, do you see Siteless as a publication that could transcend the recent years of architectural impasse and be a publication that more than explaining a specific period of architecture could offer valuable information about the depths of the discipline?

I often say that I wanted to produce a book whose content would look so obsolete, at least in terms of graphic appearance, that the book could no longer become obsolete in the future.

It is in fact timeless in the way it reminds that drawing is a form of writing, and that writing is a form of drawing. More precisely, its character was inspired by a number of treatises from the Renaissance, such as those of Scamozzi, Serlio, Vignola, and others, who relentlessly drew and redrew the same set of columns — the Five Orders — in complete siteless conditions, in the sense that these architectural elements were pre-designed prior to their insertion into particular contexts, whether programmatic or geographic. Yet, like anything else, it is a book that also is a product of its time, but it clearly constitutes a reaction to trends that aimed to maximize page count in architecture books.

Rather, Siteless has gone further than most in performing a reduction of the means of representation of architecture to its very basics, a reduction of the size of the publication itself, and a reduction of the scope of architecture to its essentials, which is the conception of buildings. In an age obsessed with the issue of sustainability, it radically opts for a practice of architecture that, in an effort to reduce the consumption of resources, restricts the representation of experimental architecture to a minimal set of printed signs.

Around a hundred years ago Kazimir Malevich submitted art to a radical transformation, reducing it to the most basic possibility of existence: pure form. Black Square (1915) and Black Circle (1923) presented a new beginning for painting. From that moment on, art didn’t need to reproduce reality, not even to make references to it. Art was in a way liberated from the responsibility of simulation. Some people claim that it was photography that freed art. We would argue that up to a point it was Malevich who did it. Nevertheless, architecture is not painting. While it can be argued that a great part of the role of the architect consists of graphic representations of [ 82 ]

buildings, there is, at least in general terms, a constraint since those images (drawings, collages, renderings) are up to a point a simulation of reality, or of something that at any given moment could, or should become real. After all, even all those treatises of the renaissance were depictions of columns. Scamozzi, Serlio and Vignola were making representations of ‘real’ and buildable columns. As the opposite of painting, pure form as a higher ideal in architecture can encounter a series of obstacles since buildings have programs and, in the best of cases, users. The act of extreme abstraction achieved by artists like Malevich or Blinky Palermo can easily become an act of wishful thinking when applied to architecture.

With publications like Siteless, and through teaching studios like the one you have mentioned in which form becomes the main object of attention, is form approached as a liberating tool in which the architect is freed from thinking about anything else but building (cultivating a form of intentional naiveté about other issues), or is this strategy part of a cynical hoax about the limitations of architectural representation and building design? Do you see this ‘coming out’ of deliberate formalism as something that enhances architecture, or, as your friend mentioned, something that has the potential to “kill” it?

It’s a complex set of questions and comments.

I’m not sure if I agree with the statement that Malevich’s Black Square constituted a new beginning for art, as it’s more likely to represent the desire to put an end to a trend that predated Suprematism, through Impressionism and Cubism, which aimed at maximizing affect through the sublimation and minimization of graphic means. To a large extent, the years that surrounded the end of the nineteenth century in art have been clearly dominated by the desire to produce the last painting, to reach the very bottom, from which one can only come back to the surface. And Black Square can be seen as a culmination of that aspiration. In fact, if one considers Malevich’s oeuvre as a whole, one can observe that abstraction is a mere digression in an otherwise figurative career. My position is somewhat ambivalent regarding this issue, because I do believe in the potential of figuration in architecture, and I think that it is likely underexploited. Art today has drastically returned to figuration. Architecture is yet to follow. What I am trying to say is that it’s easier to design the world away than to pay close attention to what already exists. Now, referring to your last questions, with a publication like Siteless, there is certainly an intention to operate a dichotomy between the language of architecture and the imperative to build, which does not necessar-

ily oppose itself to the desire of highlighting the limitations of architectural representation and design. Using freehand drawing as a medium was a deliberate choice that aimed to show the weaknesses of digital tools in the production of diversity, as what has called itself the avant-garde has now basically been recycling the same forms for over twenty years. Software in architectural design tends to generate forms that are not site-specific, nor program-specific, but forms that are properly software-specific, to the extent that it can become an obstacle to the production of diversity, since computers only offer a predetermined array of forms and transformative operations.

Following this line of thought, and assuming that form is a transcendental concept that can resist changes in society, politics, and even ideology, should form then occupy a privileged position as an object of discussion in the academia? Or should other topics like site, program, and social issues remain as the top priority? Can these topics (often conflictive) coexist as the raison d’être of architecture?

Form certainly is a notion that has started in recent years to be more thoroughly addressed and embraced in academic circles, rather than blindly rejected, as it was previously the case.

The studio I taught that revolves around the use of a single form for all projects across the entire semester precisely aimed to depressurize the issue of form-finding in architectural education, in order to focus on probably more important issues, such as those you mentioned: site, program, structure, social issues… In fact this type of design exercise is aimed to counter the perverse aspects of pedagogies that pretend to focus solely on those particular aspects but within which form often becomes the predominant criterion that governs the assessment of

creative output. In the brief I defined, the given pure form is in a way presented as carrion that program can scavenge, so as to trigger a form of heteronomous architecture that is merely governed by external forces.

Do you see pure form as a medium or a goal?

Well, in this particular instance, it’s a medium.

If we understand pure form as a set of forms that originates in Euclidian geometry, such as spheres, pyramids and cubes, the inherent capacity of these forms to contain, rather than to divide, makes them particularly appropriate as receptacles for site-specific programs. If we understand the design of an architectural project as a process of adaptation of form to external dynamic forces, these can be catalyzed by the use of pure form as an outer shell for the project. On another hand, pure form is merely of interest for its capacity to be eroded, to be affected by those forces. In a dialectic process of definition, this fixed outer shell helps determine the program, and reversely, the program reveals and distinguishes morphology. So the reversion to pure forms comes from an intention to operate a sort of tabula rasa on architectural expression. It’s almost the negation of form itself.

Is a siteless architecture not only possible, but desirable?

Judging by the book sales of Siteless, it seems to be. The vast majority of the architects I admired as a student were architects who never built anything, or who built next to nothing, such as Leonidov, Hejduk, Kiesler, or Krier.

My way of thinking was that if these architects had managed to become that relevant within this field without building, they must have done something right.

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Engineering Pure Form Interview with Chas Pope Chas Pope is an Associate Director in Arup’s Beijing office.

He moved to the city in 2003 to work with OMA on the design of the new CCTV Headquarters building, and stayed on to continue his career in Asia. He is now a member of the leadership team for the 150-strong office. Subsequent projects include Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Taipei Performing Arts Center, also with OMA. He currently manages large-scale commercial projects in China, working with international architects and clients.

Pure Geometric form, a perennial obsession in the kingdom of buildings has always been associated with the role of the architect as visionary, as utopian and idealist. However, without engineering, Hardcorism, that is, the theory of buildings as pure geometric shapes, would exist only as sketches, drawings or 3d simulacra.

Behind every building that pushes the boundaries of architectural form, there are engineers assuming the risk. Arup has been pushing the limits of extreme architectural form ever since the Sydney Opera. Responsible for the CCTV and the TVCC, as well as an ongoing list of challenging buildings across the globe, this engineering company has been demonstrating that there’s no form that cannot be done.

WAI discussed with Arup Beijing’s Associate director Chas Pope about the challenges, risks and opportunities of pushing the boundaries of engineering pure form.

www.arup.com

WAI- I would like to start by asking you to give us a short overview of your education and how you came to end up in Arup, starting from your studies and eventually what made you come to such a practice.

Chas Pope- I guess it was probably a good place to start, as a university education, by studying at Cambridge University. I had already kind of picked to do engineering as a university course because I guess it was the subjects I was good at and which led me in that direction. Probably starting from a numerical background, I [ 84 ]

was more interested in the practical aspect of what you can actually do with that, and, while I was there I heard about Arup and all the things they had done, so I wanted to try and get a job with them. Arup came across being one of the best or ‘the best’ engineering firm. Because I started by looking regionally at different bridges and other projects I had discovered first, it was only later I saw that they had done all the amazing buildings in the world: the Sydney’s Opera House, Richard Rogers’s buildings in London and in Paris. WhenI got a job with them, and almost immediately I was working on a Norman

Foster project, it was a very full month of May to start with. It was a project which had been moved aside in central London, which is an apartment building at the back of the Thames.

When I came in, they had already worked out the scheme; it was a very logarithmic curvy spiralling building. And so by the time I came in, we had already gone through the process of turning that into a reality, dealing with things like lights, structure, all the sorts of things that are wonderful concepts but which you have to turn into reality. So from the off, I was trying to help turn these forms into practical real buildings. In London we do a lot of details right through the construction drawings. Much more so than in China, so you are really seeing the full implications of a complex form.

Rotterdam, so we were spending 9 months or so, flying to Rotterdam every couple of days to sort of work out a design with them.

That was at the beginning?

Yes and then a few of us moved to Beijing to then hand over to the local engineers who would finish off the work and oversee some of that from here. That’s when my Beijing career started.

I joined at a Scheme Design Stage, so we already had worked out to see if the design was feasible. We would need a basic structural system to hold it up. But for the first 2 months we were solving what seemed to be an impossible problem every day, just to make this form and So you were interested already in buildings, these ideas into a practical reality. even given that engineering has so many branches?

So that was a very challenging project to start with here.

The Cambridge courses are very theoretical but they are also very good because they teach Absolutely. you a very wide range of engineering, so you just don’t do code, or you just don’t do struc- And have you found or encountered any tural engineering. You learn about the ventila- more challenging projects that that one? tion systems, the lighting and the architectural design. It is that that got me interested in build- Not yet. ings and also bridges, because it is about how a building responds to its occupants, how it is al- Do you think from what you have seen, that most learning all the time and adapting. There there are more challenging projects which seems to be much more depth to designing a have been built? Recent buildings? building than you realize. That your interest might be structure is only part of the all, which Yes definitely. CCTV caught everyone’s imagiis of course when Arup comes in because nation on the design team, so Arup was able that’s the holy force of Arup, compared to a to pull out a very good team to work on it. So technical architecture where you might not al- we had very good people and we all knew we ways do the best structural solution if it means had to pull some expression out of the bag to compromising deliver this thing. So it meant we needed to all work together very well as a team.

So it was design oriented?

I’ve worked on other projects since then, which Yes. shouldn’t have been more complex, but for this reason they became more complicated.

And you started with the Foster Building in London. But when did you move to China? What was the complexity, the difficulties about the CCTV? Was it a schedule issue?

I moved to China in late 2003. Arup had won Or was it the structure? the commission to design the CCTV tower, here in Beijing, without me. The competition It was the structure. As the team who was makwas in 2002, so again I joined the team just af- ing the design to make it stand up, we were ter the competition was won. So we won it and pushing the boundaries quite a lot, and quite a then we needed to bring the engineers in and way outside the rules of the Chinese code. So develop this thing, At that time, we thought we we had to design everything, from first princihad a very challenging schedule to design it, and ples to be able to justify it in front of panels of off course having come to China, I know that experts in China. So we had to do much more everything is like that. analysis that we ever had done to prove that this could work. But then, some of the implicaWe did the main design in London, because it tions of that, which were coming through to was a London team — Cecil Balmond, Chris me was that, we had to make sure that a televiCarroll, Rory McGowan — that had really good sion station could fit into there, so we couldn’t contact with Rem Koolhaas and his team in just put structure where we wanted. So we had [ 85 ]

to coordinate this with the architects to make the building actually function. That was another complete challenge, and that’s what I was doing on the building.

point and actually starting the scheme design we did a whole round of feasibility studies to do exactly this.

WAI- Is that part of the process of all the projects?

Were the spatial complications a product of specific requirements or because of ar- CP- This was a headline grabbing international project so it involves doing much more than if chitectural decisions? it was a small little project somewhere else.

Because the building was for the studios, it’s not just an office tower, we couldn’t just put col- You worked also with similar projects umns where we wanted to. There were some big around Asia. You mentioned the Taipei Opopen spaces in there, so our concept was that all era House you are working on? the structure goes into the skin, so you see it.

All those dark lines on the façade are structure. Yes that was another one of my projects afterWe got the majority of them but there were still wards. There were actually quite a lot of the trusses, there were still cantilevers, all those sort same team since that was also working with of things inside to try to make it all stick to- OMA. That was a similar idea to the internagether. And so in many cases where we wanted tional competition we entered, except that in to put things, we couldn’t because it was a studio this one, I was involved in the competition stage. What was interesting looking back now or a mechanical floor, a lift shaft or whatever. is, that it was also a very form based project. AlDo you think that this type of strategy or though there’s a good rational functionality as bold architecture would be possible in other well, it means that you need typically three different auditoriums for a Preforming Art Centre. places?

Actually 3 different buildings within one shell.

CCTV was very much a function of China in For example, the Sidney Opera House is ike 2002 for the Olympic Games. It was a function that. For the Egg in Beijing the sphere is actuof that design brief for a company which had ally completely separated from the three buildthe vision to do something special, but with the ings housing the auditoriums. In Taipei, the need to have such a big varied design brief, be- concept was what would happen if you could cause you wouldn’t expect a country or a com- combine these back stage aspects into one big pany trying to make a statement doing that. So back stage area and the three Auditoriums. So it was a real combination of circumstances. So that’s what led to the idea of having three Auyou might not see that again, but there might be ditoriums around a central core. And then they got lifted up from the ground and became very a South American company, who knows. form based ideas.

Trying to encapsulate what CCTV brings, On TPAC, we fixed so much very quickly from do you think that the most difficult thing the structural concept. On all the different issues we had very strong conceptual ideas, which about the building is the form? guided us through later on.

Certainly, because when you are trying to do a structure in a shape … Just to make it stand up Sometimes you might see an example of a form is a challenge in other words. We had to have based building going up and it’s taking a long much more structure. If you’re doing some- time for all the different components to go up. thing unusual you have to think of every pos- For example, if the structure is going up, what sible consequence, because you introduce new would be the ventilation strategy. If the form data to the design that you don’t need to consid- is driving the design so much in a building, er in normal buildings. So you need to explore sometimes it is like trying to fit a structure to all these avenues of thought to make sure that it without a very strong structural idea or very strong ventilation strategy, so then you are on there are no risks. the back foot, you are just trying to fit the techWere there ever doubts that the building nical part to the form. It might overall suffer would never be able to be done or the form because once you eventually get the structure was already suggesting a structural princi- and the MEP to work, you might have to compromise the form. Again if you don’t have the ple that couldn’t be solved? solutions for those things at the same time as We did a lot of work. There was the initial sub- the architectural concept you are risking dilutmission for the competition where you want to ing the design so much later. have a general idea without having to work everything out. But we actually did a fair amount That’s why for TPAC we tried to have all these of work for that stage. But then between that ideas at the beginning; it meant that it was also [ 86 ]

part of the concept.

So the process of that one compared to the CCTV is quite different? Because what is striking about CCTV is that the form is so strong and that’s so unusual. The Taipei Opera is very formalist with all the volumes, so it’s less difficult to imagine built. You can see there is the result of something but the CCTV building is almost like a utopian form. We remember reading some description you made about it comparing it to an Esher composition. It’s a sculptural object so it becomes really about the form.

True, it’s a very sculptural object. The beauty of CCTV is that the functional description brief allowed that to work as a sculptural form. There was actually a list of different sizes of rooms’, areas which had to be fitted into this building; it was like assembling a 3D jigsaw. OMA found a way to assemble all these little boxes to work together but also that suited that form. One image you probably have seen of CCTV is the one where they have the exploded view of all of the studios, walkways, offices, etc. and how they all fit in. For other office buildings, usually they just wish for a core and a nice big area you can rent out, which leads you to a very simple shape of building. You could never do that with CCTV except with this unique program brief.

They were ready to accept that there would be areas that couldn’t be used that well because it didn’t matter, it wasn’t that big of a penalty; they got there functional program and they got their visual statement.

a building in a sphere shape, it looks very unfeasable . Are there, in your experience, certain types of building ideally very easy to portray visually but physically very difficult to achieve, structurally speaking. Even when we look at the cover, all those spherical buildings. Of course some have been built, but they usually have legs popping out everywhere. Do you think almost anything can be done nowadays?

Of course everything can be done nowadays if you have enough money. In Beijing and in other places where we have earthquake regulation to worry about, the further it is from a simple square or sort of rectangular shape the more the problems, and the stronger it needs to be to resist an earthquake basically. So a sphere, especially if it’s sitting on a small stick that’s going to wave around quite a lot if there’s an earthquake. you will need to reinforce it a lot. So for the more unstable looking forms, you definitely have a structure penalty on those.

But all shapes are possible?

Yes they are. If you find a client willing to pay for it! Once you get away from regular shapes, and that you are into double curvatures or ellipsoidal, things that aren’t simple repetitive shapes. That really add costs on façade, etc.

There’s a building on hold for example in London, because of façade issues. It’s not such a complicated façade but it’s made of different panels and it’s basically burning the budget for the whole thing. So if you have to have a lot of different facade panels you rapidly add to the cost.

Putting it in context, along with the TVCC But in terms of structure it’s not a problem? that building is also structurally unusual or, is it more about the façade?

It usually all comes down to money. That’s where often we try to rationalize the design. So CCTV was geometrically quite simple but tech- it’s still having the drama factor of the architecnically quite complex because once you get ture but it becomes simpler in a way that you, your head around the shape it was very regular, for example, are using 10 different panel sizes whereas TVCC was technically quite simple but instead of 10 000. We had a project where that geometrically it was far more complex because is exactly what happened; in the Middle East. it was a very irregular shape constantly chang- We helped to get down from about 10 000 difing. At the bottom of TVCC, hidden inside that ferent panel types to 10. This was for a 100 meshape, there are the recording studios. All the ter tall tower, so not that big but big enough programs have all kinds of different shapes. It’s that you are into some pretty serious money. technically kind of complex how the programs fit together.

So you also have projects in the Middle East? Is the freedom of experimenting with In your experience in this project and in other forms or different types of architecture bigprojects that you may be working on in Asia and ger than here? Of course we know that in Europe, is there a type of form which tends Europe is not the place to experiment too to give more problems? Making our book about much, is it somehow similar?

Pure Hardcore Icons where we look into several different possibilities of the classification I think Dubai has calmed down to some extent of buildings according to their shape, we saw but the Emirates and Qatar still seem to have a even buildings shaped like alphabet letters, etc. fair amount, looking at the buildings which are But for example every time that somebody does going up. [ 87 ]

But they are mostly about being really high?

The one I am actually thinking about is the Aldar Headquarters. The one that looks like a disk on its side. Not that high but actually very eye catching. It’s a circle, and it’s actually wider than it looks.

his form to the client, and the client sees the photo-realistic renderings which convinces him that it will stand up, but no engineer has looked at it. Then you become the bad guy that is compromising the form to make it work. But if you work together from start, your concept will fly and the client is happy because he will be able to be confident that this form can be delivered.

How about the structural concept for this Again going to your experience, do you have any kind of projects which gave you, one? Is it also challenging? structurally speaking, a lot of challenges in There are less earthquakes over there and lower the way the building was designed, or built? levels of regulations, so that makes it easier. The only challenge there is that the client wanted to CCTV is definitely up there. TPAC; that rebuild it very very fast, so the core was finished quired a lot of thought. What we did there was a technique called base isolation, so we actually in 12 months after starting the design. put all the building on bearings. So when there’s How do you see the future, where the chal- an earthquake the building just moves. So that lenges might come from? If not form, fa- means that a lot less forces are transmitted into cades, etc.? We know the history of Arup the building. It gave us much more freedom to with the Sydney Opera House where no- be able to do a complex form. body else knew how to solve it. So basically as a practice you live on the edge of absur- If it’s a complicated shape it increases the damdity , and of course, you need to have the age caused in a possible earthquake. So if you money and the desire to create things that are reducing the effective size of the earthquake look absurd. Like the CCTV looks com- you are reducing the risks. pletely out of the image of what a normal building would be, Sydney Opera House It’s a common technique in the US, and in Jaalso. But talking more about economical pan, and fairly common now in Taiwan. It’s climates, can you see how experimentation starting now in China. It’s still an expensive can keep on in the future or will we reach technology even if it’s getting cheaper. Which a point where by experience, our building means you are going to do this for a building you don’t want to fail at all in an earthquake, like become more constrained? a hospital for example. I think there is a hospital I don’t think so. If you cast your mind back to in China like that and as it will become cheaper the 70’s when they were building the Sydney you will see more and more buildings with this Opera House, you wouldn’t have been able to technology. predict where we are going now. I think so many ideas in China are as advanced as you would see It will probably help in the future to have more in the gulf, whether all of them get built or not. freedom in form.

Increasingly, you also see developers who are looking at eye-catching statements often for commercial properties as well. Where China is When does this have to be implemented in building so many offices for example, you have the process of a building? to differentiate; you want a reason why people would come to your building and not someone It has to come early because if you are going to isolate a building because it has to be able to else’s and often than means form. move, you can end up with pretty wide joints Up to what point in the process do you be- around the building. You can’t suggest it later come involved in the decision of form? For in the process because it will affect too much. example, talking again about CCTV and the Taipei project, is there a moment where If you are in a place which has frequent earththe engineer says we have to change the quakes, you don’t want to be in a case where strategy because this is really not working? the plaster on the ceiling cracks or the furniture is damaged every time there’s an earthquake, Often yes. Which is why it’s so good when because that costs money to repair. So, if you you are doing those very advanced designs, to have a building which is completely unharmed make sure that the engineers are there from the the upturn will be much more happy. beginning. So when you have this great form idea, you can very quickly get it more realistic. Are all the most challenging projects for ARUP There are plenty of times where we might get from OMA? involved in a project where the architect show’s [ 88 ]

OMA and Zaha Hadid as well. We did one of have produced a lot of great work. Also the engithe Soho projects with them, the Wanjing, but neers working a lot with Coop-Himmelblau, Boljust the MEP. We also did the Aquatic Centre in linger und Grohmann gmbh.

London for the 2012 Olympics.

There’s a lot of good engineers around the world What is important there, is the 3D modelling of but not every one is willing to take the risk to the building; to make sure that you can model build complicated buildings. every last detail before you get on sight. You save a lot of time. For the London Aquat- Yes, it is more about being able to take the reic Centre they did a model up to the diving sponsibility with your name on what you are boards because they were also very complicated building even if you may know how to solve shapes, so they modelled every single piece of it structurally… reinforcement steel. That’s another technique that we now use to help us when we are doing To make one point on what you just said as well, complicated forms so you can get that much which is quite important. In this world with the further in the design process. computer it is extremely easy just to buy software and analyze something. So you can have an amazFrom where we are we try to write theory ing architecture shape, you can analyze it and you and understand the built environment. can prove it works and that’s great, but it’s probBut what you are telling us about Rem ably not the best way to get the best building.

Koolhaas, or Zaha Hadid is that they are There’s also a risk that you can’t really understand the ones that build on theory but also do the behavior of the structure. If you just analyze more challenging buildings. This may be a structure to make it work, you may not really pushing the discipline of architecture, not understand how it is behaving and how it is reonly in thinking but also in building build- sponding. ings. What about other practices you might know, not as famous architects, but also Here, in China, we saw a lot of shake table very challenging structurally or how build- testing. Is it very unusual today? ings are being developed?

My view is that you get better answers with comWe do collaborate often with smaller practices. puters than with a scale model. But this test has a If there’s a really good idea we will try to push benefit, especially here, where everything is movto deliver it. Information Base Architects, they ing so quick. So to the client it can give a very are a Dutch couple, are the one’s behind the good representation.

Canton Television Tower in Ghanzhou. They came up with this very beautiful idea but as it When we did the CCTV one, it was just outside was only the two of them, they couldn’t deliver Beijing, and the lab actually had a hook on top it. So we came in at the competition stage and because they were worried it would fall over… looked at how we could make this thing stand we often joke about this… up but also what would need to be done to go from the concept to actually delivering this 600 It was a pretty big model? meters tall tower.

Yes, 6 or 7 meters… And it just fitted on the We have also worked on a couple of projects shake table…. Now the tallest tower in China is with Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies from Ko- 660meters tall and the tallest Arup one is 600 merea. We have worked with him for the Kore- ters tall, in Tianjin. It is called “Goldin Finance an Pavilion in the Shanghai expo. He also has 117” and it’s under construction, it’s probably some very interesting sorts of form ideas. He about 30-40 storey’s up… did a number of commercial buildings in Seoul which are much simpler… but when you get a What is more challenging, the height or the commission where you can really go mad with form of a building? a beautiful curved concrete shell, he has done that as well.

It’s two separate things really, because the higher it goes the more restrictive you are in terms of…

Still related to the same architects, because Once you get to 600 meter high there are very maybe they have the projects that allow few cost effective structural systems you can use them to look-up Arup, in terms of the en- to get that high. Often now your standard tower gineering world, do you see other practices around the world is a square tower, a core and that are also willing to go to this level of high big columns inside. Usually these big towers engineering craziness and willingness to are commercial offices, so you want as little strucdeliver buildings that are highly unusual? ture as possible, so you kind of group it in these sort of mega columns. In China it’s the same but Buro Happold who formed out of an Arup with more bracing to face the earthquakes. group have a very similar philosophy, so they [ 89 ]

We are architects. We are quite visual and somehow superficial because we are always looking at surfaces and at images, it may be a good thing or a bad thing as it keeps you away from those problems. But new materiThese are basically the two systems that are als also help architecture make a big leap brave enough to support a very tall tower, but if we think of the industrial revolution, and the structure size just gets more enormous for the use of steel, and glass, etc. Is there not a something that big. meaningful advancement in new materials, materials that can be used in mass?

Is there a limit of height?

In the last 20 years, there’s not been that Again it’s economic… much change in materials. It’s still mainly steel and concrete. Steel got a little big So you can go 1 km? stronger but not in any sizeable magnitude, concrete a little lighter…

They are already doing that in Saudi Arabia…

There have been plans for 1 mile also in the So that’s what we should be looking at in Middle East… the future to really make a difference… But would it be technology in terms of calculatSo there are actually no limits…. ing and then going back to form? We have for example compared Zaha Hadid and Again it comes down to money because the Schumacher with all the theory that they structure size becomes enormous, the core be- developed with these ideas, which flow percomes enormous, you need so many lifts and fectly in the computer but when faced with so many shafts to service the building, so the reality becomes something else. actual revenue of the space becomes tiny.

There are also other factors that might change So a pyramid can be built 2 miles high, in things as well… For example, China is developtheory? ing big rules on sustainability, which will affect the materials you can use. For example, planes.

I’m sure, yes.

Planes are being built in carbon fiber to face the cost of fuel going so high.

Do you think that structure has reached a point where everything can be solved if The point is that this will push the development there’s money basically? If the building of carbon fiber, although carbon fiber is not touches the ground at least? And, is the present in the building world yet. progress of engineering more technology driven?

Sometimes, in some projects the materials that are going to be used depend on the costs, which If you are an architect and your model doesn’t can change very quickly. For example for a projstand up… I have looked at buildings like that ect of a tower we did in Hong Kong, we had and you know there will be a few issues there! out ringers that connects the core to stiffen it.

Three of them were made out of steel which Certainly technology has evolved a lot, for ex- is what you normally use, but one of them was ample CCTV wouldn’t have been done 1 or made out of concrete because when the tower 2 years before because it took us a month or reached that level there was a massive spike in two to prepare for a severe earthquake study steel price and it was cost effective to change that now replaces the shaking table test, and in the design. those days it took over one month to do the analysis on computer processes. Now we can There might be some exterior shocks like that do those analyses in just a few hours. So know- which might bring about the development of ing the speed of the changes, a few years ago different materials and potentially give opporwe wouldn’t have been able to do those analyses tunity to new forms. in time.

Broad Group in China, started as an AC manuCCTV was also just made before the world facturer but came up with a pre-fabricated conturned on to 3D documentation, so CCTV was struction idea and now they’ve proposed to mainly designed in 2D. build a tower of 838 meters tall in Changsha, Today it would be easier, so technology is defi- Sky City one, in only 6 months. It’s actually on nitely making it easier more so than material ad- hold, but the basic idea of pre-fabrication, alvances or other things like that. lowing people to build more quickly, can be a The other thing you could do is brace it up so you have diagonals in the façade. The Guangzhou IFC tower is like that. It’s a slightly rounded tower with diagonals around the outside.

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big game changer for the industry… but with the risk of moving away from nice forms to But in terms of structure, are we doomed more blocky ideas. forever because of physics?

Thinking about the future, to project ourselves, maybe in 20 years or 30 years, we will be able to say that the most meaningful change in the capacity of people to deliver these forms is through calculating technology? Software? Computer technology?

It’s not just physics it’s the constructability. You might be able to prove that an interesting form stands up but if someone has to build it and finds it too difficult to build it or cast it then you are stuck. But if 3D printing allows you to do that on a massive scale…

That’s where it has been basically… The one thing that is interesting and that can really change the game is the 3D printing. It seems that now you can do that with metals or different materials, so there are more organic forms being printed. I think that maybe printed reality is a little way off but in terms of simpler form ideas it can be a game changer.

So, ideally, in the future it could be 3D printing and casting full buildings…

Eventually yes. I think in the short term we still have to have technology to assist design and bring bigger changes…

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PURE HARDCORE ICONS

Hardcorism For as the universe is in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. (...)

To earth, then, let us assign the cubical form ; for earth is the most immoveable of the four and thwe most plastic of all bodies, and that which has the most stable bases must of necessity be of such a nature.(...)

Let it be agreed, then, both according to strict reason and according to probability, that the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed of fire ; and let us assign the element which was next in the order of generation to air, and the third to water. –Plato

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Pure Hardcore Icons

A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture

1 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradication in Architecture, (New York: Museum of Modern Art Papers on Architecture, 1966).

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was hailed as the Last Great Architectural Narrative, is the world ready for a new reading of architecture?

2 “A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious in undoubtedly personal.

I call it the personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious.

I have chosen the term ‘collective’ because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal…” From C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious: The Collected Works, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

3 “Jung’s conclusion to be developed in his later writings, was that, inherent in the human psyche, there is a patterning force, which may, at various times, and in places of touch with each other, spontaneously put forth similar constellations of fantasy.” From the introduction in Joseph Campbell, ed., The Portable Jung, (New York: Penguin Books 1976).

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Understanding Icons have become the ultimate generic form of architecture.

Never before has the combination of technology and mass media enhanced such a prolific production and diffusion of monuments to “signature” architecture. Design school desks, computer screens, and magazine pages around the globe have been flooded with torrents of buildings in pure shapes. Redundant forms —either as poured concrete or as virtual bytes— pop-up with the speed it takes to wire-cut Styrofoam or master 3d modeling software. Paradoxically, this abrupt surge of iconographic architectural paraphernalia has overshadowed the demise of the manifesto, one of architecture’s most powerful and straightforward tools to declare its intentions.

Ever since Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) was hailed as the last great architectural narrative, architectural theory has been unsuccessfully trying to rationalize the often similar icons either as the by-products of the unpredictability of the contemporary city or as the result of suspiciously momentary (and opportunistic) trends that oscillate from the so-called green design to the supposed technology-aided revolution of parametricism.1 But, are vague explanations of conditions external to architecture enough to elucidate the formal similarities between so many iconic buildings? Are the CCTV tower and the Max Reinhardt Haus similar just by coincidence?

Or, is there an underlying relationship between Foster and Partners’ Palace of Peace and Reconciliation , Buck-

minster Fuller’s Tetrahedron City and Giza’s Pyramids?

How to explain the disappearance of any attempt to give theoretical coherence to these buildings, at the moment when formal consistence seems to suggest the possibility of a new architectural ontology? What about understanding architecture’s concealed plot about form?

Manifesto Not all architecture is infatuated by form, but for the one that is, this is its manifesto.

Resisting the temptation to claim that form and architecture have a new symbiosis or that all contemporary architecture is obsessed with pyramids or looping skyscrapers, this vademecum targets a specific series of buildings that have given form undeniable protagonism. It recognizes that, just as Modernism had five canonical points, and Post-Modernism aspired to emulate complexity and contradiction in architecture, there is an architecture that has made form the pillar of its visual edifice.

This is a manifesto about architecture and form, a manifesto about Pure Hardcore Icons.

Archetype Carl Jung defined as an archetype, the patterning forces contained in the Collective Unconscious, the deeper layer of images that is inborn in the human psyche in people indifferent to time and place. 2,3 Pure Hardcore Icons surges when those images become architectural.

Based on the principle of Hardcorism—architecture as Hardcore, pure geometric form, Pure Hardcore Icons

PURE HARDCORE ICONS A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture Artifice Books on Architecture London ISBN 978 1 908967 39 8 80 Pages 15 x 15cm August 2013

4 Hardcorist Munari?

Bruno Munari’s Il Cerchio (1964), Il Quadrato (1960), and Il Triangolo (1976) provided in book form graphic evidence of Jung’s theory of the archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. Pure Hardcore Icons aspires to do the same with architecture.

5 François Blanciak, SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).

looks into the ‘collective unconscious’ of architecture in a similar way as Kazimir Malevich stared into the depths of modern art. Just like Malevich’s The Non-Objective World (1927) became the first manifesto of pure form in art, despite the fact that geometric shapes have been part of the visual repertoire of fairytales, myths, religions, and visual arts ever since the beginning of humankind, Pure Hardcore Icons gives a theoretical framework to the timeless tradition of designing buildings as pure form.

Pure Hardcore Icons is both retroactive, in that its theory applies to architecture since the beginning of history, and projective, since it foresees the future dialectic of architecture and pure form. Pure Hardcore Icons is a Munarian discovery of the Cube and the Sphere, of the Pyramid and the Skyscraper Loop, of the Horizontal Condenser and the Stacked Boxes.4 Without implying that the creation of autonomous objects is the only way to produce architecture, Pure Hardcore Icons brings architectural form —a relentless taboo in the architectural discourse— to the forefront of the theoretical discussion. Pure Hardcore Icons excavates the thick layers of historical memory to reveal the depths of architecture’s Collective Unconscious.

Triptyque Written and designed by Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia (directors of WAI Architecture Think Tank), Pure Hardcore Icons includes supporting contributions by Luca Silenzi (Prologue: Form Substance), Guido Tesio (Epilogue: Conjectures on Conventional Composition) and an interview with François Blanciak, author of SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms (2008).5 A conceptual triptyque, Pure Hardcore Icons is composed of three semi-autonomous parts, each one the product of a combination of critical text and manufactured landscapes that aim to dissect the relationship between form and architecture.

Pure In the first part, Pure Hardcorism presents pure geometric form as an architectural ideal. The first manifesto of pure geometric shapes renders the role of pyramids, cubes, and spheres throughout the history of architecture.

Hardcore The second part presents The Shapes of Contemporary Hardcore Architecture, an ontology of some of the most prevalent formal categories in the recent years of architectural production. In this part a series of landscapes display as “evidence” contemporary architecture’s consistent forms.

Icons The third essay, Post(card) Ideological Icons showcases three post(cards) that put in contrast iconic projects of an avant-garde charged with philosophical symbolism, with contemporary re-interpretations to reveal the dialectic between the iconographic power of form and the lasting relevance of ideology in architecture.

Dogma Pure Hardcore Icons is not a dogmatic publication or a history book. Instead of offering absolute answers, the manifesto uses humorous conviction as a tool to raise awareness about pure form in architecture hoping that the potential and limitations of these architectures could be fully grasped either in practice, in the academia or as a purely intellectual exercise. This book asks; what about Understanding Pure Hardcore Icons?

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What About It? exists and subsists with the pull of external forces that help WAI gravitate in an unpredictable universe of challenges and risks. This issue and the projects presented in it wouldn’t be possible without the embrace, belief and support of friends, colleagues and contributors from all around the world that include. What About It? is possible because of… the unconditional support of Ronald Frankowski…the support of Zhang Ke, Zhang Hong, Claudia Taborda… the kindness of Michelle Garnaut… the support of Wang Xingyou and PIFO New Art Gallery… the invaluable contributions of Hao Chen, Zhang Yanping (Diego), Edgar Garcia, Joao Dias Pereira, Annie Yuxie Wang, Felix Cruz Marcos, Sophie Salamon, Guido Tesio, Yu Yihua, Anna Popova, Ilyas Sadybekov, Alejandra Garcia Hooghuis, Evgenia Novgorodova … the belief of Duncan McCorquodale and Artifice Books on Architecture in London and Paula V. Alvarez and Vibok Works in Sevilla…the eagerness and support of Vicente Diaz Faixat… the interest of Horizonte Journal for Contemporary Architectural Discourse, Studio Magazine, Arch+, Monu Magazine on Urbanism, Concrete Flux, Desierto Magazine, Archdaily, Revista Plot, Ethel Baraona Pohl, 0300TV…the embracing atmosphere of KB Strelka in Moscow…the curatorial initiatives of Pedro Gadanho of the MoMA New York, Bea Leanza of Beijing Design Week and the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester, Daan Roggenveen of the Shanghai Study Centre of the University of Hong Kong, Elias Redstone of Archizines…the words of Meng Zhigang, Francois Blanciak, Charles Pope, Elias Redstone, and Carmen Graciela Diaz of El Nuevo Dia… the unconditional support of Dominique Decloitre, Lourdes Santiago, Manuel Garcia, and Cruz Manuel Garcia for making the world a welcoming place…

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Universal The newest trend and the art scene are unnecessary distractions for a serious artist.

He will be much more rewarded responding to art of all times and places. Not for art history but considering each piece and its value to him. —Agnes Martin

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Essays

Manifestoes

Projects Interviews

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